Fact 231: The Bristol myths about Blackboy Hill
We can dispel the much-loved Bristol myth concerning how Blackboy Hill actually got its name BEFORE starting on a 'proper' history of Blackboy Hill, let's blow away the cobwebs and dispel a few old myths. Just as there were never any 'nuns in white habits' - or white ladies - in the road of that name (legend places an old nunnery on the site of the Whiteladies Cinema) so there were never any 'black boys' on Blackboy Hill (despite the city's appalling record in the slave trade). It's one of those well-beloved Bristol myths that the Georgian gentry gathered here for slave boy auctions.
It's rubbish, of course, although slave boys did exist in Bristol even before the slave trade really got going. By 1600 Africans were common in London and Queen Elizabeth I talked of the 'great' numbers of Negars and Blackamoors which are crept into the realm.' Shakespeare's Othello first acted in 1604, features a black Moor centre stage so we assume his audience must have been familiar with the negro race.
There is a pub on the hill called 'The Blackboy', but don't be fooled into thinking that this is how the name came about, because until 1988 it was known as the 'Elephant and Castle'! But we're getting close - because the hill was named after a pub of that name. But this was demolished in 1874 for road widening as it straddled the whole highway leading up to the Downs and beyond (as you can see from the picture). How the inn itself got its name is debatable.
In the early 18th century it was called The Blackamoor's Head, it was enlarged and rebuilt between 1749 and 1756, and by 1803 had become known as The Blackboy Tavern. We know that when Shakespeare referred to people as black, he often meant they they had a dark complexion. Over the years many historians have suggested that the pub, like many others throughout the country, was named after King Charles II (1630-85), whose skin pigment was very dark and whose nickname was the 'Black Boy'.
The top of the hill was the old tram terminus for Eastville, Westbury and the Centre (via Zetland Road) and the tram company also had a garage here. Of the three serious accidents that occurred during the trams 66 years of service just two occurred here. The well-known 'Blackboy Advertiser' board, which carried large ads for all and sundry, survived until 50 years ago, when it was taken down for a garage.
The picturesque 'cabmans' rest' made of timber, is now nearly 100 years old and was constructed originally as a shelter for convalescing soldiers. In the 1960s plans for a huge traffic island were mooted on the hill which would have also sliced into the precious Downs. These plans were not finally scrapped until 1973.
Fact 232: The first grave at Arnos Vale cemetery
The fascinating tale of Mary Breillat, who was probably the first Bristolian to book a place in the then brand-new Arnos Vale Cemetery. MARY Breillat died on July 23, 1839, aged 68 after 44 years of marriage. And it's distinctly possible she had the rather dubious honour of having the first grave in the new Arnos Vale cemetery. The land on the hillside between the Wells and Bath roads at Brislington was originally destined to be the site of Bristol Zoo. But the zoologiocal society finally decided to open the menagerie at Clifton and the zoo land was released to become a garden cemetery. Mary was born Mary Holbrook in 1769 and a silhouette portrait of her in a bonnet still survives. So does her memorial - a 12ft high obelisk - which has recently been rediscovered in the cemetery woods. Mary was one of less than eight people buried in the cemetery in its first year but she has a slightly greater claim to fame than most.
For it was her husband, son and grandson who revolutionised the gas industry in Bristol and helped fuel the growth of the city's biggest industries. John Breillat, who she married at St Nicholas Church in 1795, was a calender and silk dyer who, for some reason, developed an interested in gas lighting. Bristol's limited street lighting was by oil but most of the city remained dark. Breillat had been demonstrating the advanatges of gas lighting as early as 1811 and in 1815 was invited to set up the Bristol Gas Light Company.
He was paid £150 a year plus a house in Merchant Street and the city's first gas factory was set up in Temple Back. Local residents were surveyed to see who would like gas lighting if it was available and the largest gas holder in the country was built (it was nicknamed Aladdin). Gas made from coal was slow to catch on, largely because of strong opposition from those who thought fish oil made a better product (and helped the Greenland whaling trade, too). The Commercial Rooms made some inquiries, but backed out when they discovered they would still need candles as well as gas, and there were doubts elsewhere about the competence of the fitters.
John was joined in the business by his son Ebenezer, and experimented with a new coke/coal blend to make gas more economically. The breakthrough came in 1821 when the city planned a General Illumination to mark the Coronation of George IV and gas was chosen to light the outside of offices in Queen Square.
Breillat improved the Bristol gas works and was rewarded with a reduction in salary! His relationship with the company cooled and in 1825, he took six months leave to set up a new gas works at Newport. But as coal gas began to put oil gas out of the running, Breillat's salary began to climb again. Ebenezer, who had left under a cloud, was also offered a new post back in Bristol (John was now 62 and the company was concerned about what would happen if he died).
But it was John who helped give Wells, Dursley and Neath their first gas lighting and who advised Bath on setting up a gas company. Ebenezer meanwhile was campaigning for better wages for the gas workers (rejected by the board) and helped design a roof for Bath Gas Works - unfortunately in Bristol Gas Light Company time. It's possible he only kept his job because his father was a widower by now and ailing.
In 1844, John's hours were reduced and Ebenezer's salary increased. The company then commissioned a portrait of John who resigned in 1847 on the grounds of experiencing 'so great a decay of ability both mental and physical that I cannot think of entering on another winter'. But the Breillat family continued their involvement in gas lighting schemes all over the area, including Berkeley, Thornbury, Keynsham, Clevedon, and Radstock.
John died in 1856, and in 1861, Ebenezer persuaded the company to give the men at the Avon Street works a party to mark the anniversary of his father's experiments with gas lighting. Ebenezer died in 1880 after his son and nephew had entered the gas business. And there seems little doubt that without the Breillats - John, Marty and Ebenezer - the West would be a much darker place. The full story of the family can be found in The Bristol Gas Light Company: The Breillat Dynasty of Engineers by Harold Nabb (Bristol Branch of the Historical Association, 1993).
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Fact 233: The Life & Times of Paper Sally from Bristol
SEVENTY three years after her death, eccentric Paper Sal has become part of Bristol mythology. 'She was born in 1844 and died 1926. She lived in a little house in Redcross Street and took clean paper to a fish and chip shop in Lawford Street. Her reward was a paper full of scrumps. 'Sal's room was always piled high with papers. She wore a black skirt and pushed an old pram around collecting wood for her fire. She fed all the cats in the district and was rumoured to be the daughter of a rich person. She never used swear words or drank much. When she died, the police and fire brigade sent flowers to be put on her grave in Greenbank cemetery.'
Her real name was Mary Ann Taylor and she was 82 when she died, apparently from suffocation in a fire in her then home in Deep Street (opposite the White Hart, Lower Maudlin Street) on Christmas morning. Her apartment was piled high with newspapers which made it difficult for firemen to get in. Former policeman Stanley Knight who found her body told the Evening Post in 1983: 'She was a very short lady who was given six free local papers free every day. These she sold to pay for breakfast.' He also found her room full of Fry's cocoa tins stuffed with florins (two shilling pieces).
All kinds of tales and rumours survive about Paper Sal. She was said to be well spoken, to have been abandoned on a doorstep by her rich mother, or cheated out of a fortune by her relatives or a crooked lawyer. Some children feared her as a witch; others recalled her giving them pennies. She lived with a man known as Old Bill or Paper Bill, and both collected waste paper. Lots of people seemed to like her - she was given tea and cakes every morning by a teashop in Welsh Back and the police kept a friendly eye on her.
Fact 234: Macabre tale of Betty's ghost
IN 1788 Betty Wilkins was working as a servant to the miller of Willsbridge. Her home was ancient Clack Mill, a corn mill situated near the road leading to Keynsham (the farmhouse still stands), by Siston Brook. When the mill wheel turned it would click clack noisily and the old name for Siston Brook at Willsbridge was Mill Clack Brook. Betty's world, of farmhouse mill, mill-pond, willow grounds and brook, was more cheerful in summer than in winter. The mill site (which dates from the early 15th century at least) was a dank place hemmed in by gloomy hills.
To either side lay marshy fields whose names are now all but forgotten - Whaddon Moor, near the Keynsham Road junction at Willsbridge, and Doverley, which ran down towards the River Avon. During the bleak months of winter low mists would cling to the area like a shroud.
On Tuesday, September 23, 1788, Betty Wilkins died in great physical and mental agony. Her corpse may have been found floating in the millpond or washed up amongst the willows - trees symbolic of death, lost love and despair. But when her body was opened up and examined at an inquest on Thursday, September 25, the actual cause of death given was arsenic poisoning. The stuff had burned into the poor woman's stomach.
Mr Sherring, a Keynsham surgeon, also observed that Betty was pregnant, so the jury put two and two together and assumed a verdict of felo de se (ie self-murder suicide) carried out for reasons of fear and shame. She was a married woman but had not had any contact with her husband for some time. The identity of her lover was either unknown or deliberately suppressed. Suicide in the 18th century was classed as an act of crime committed by individuals in league with the Devil. So, as was customary, she was ordered to be buried 'in the crossroads', rather than in consecrated ground.
Her body was taken up from the premises of Mr Robbins (possibly Rollings), miller of Willsbridge, buried in a crossroads and probably staked. It is not known for certain where she lies. Unlike some suicide crossroad graves, such Tucker's Grave at Faulkland and Webber's Grave near Wellington, the site of Betty's burial has not survived in folk memory. If she was indeed interred within Bitton parish then it would have been at a remote spot, such as Beach Hamlet (there was a field called Coffin Tyning at a crossroads in Beach) because of the very real fear of hauntings.
Suicides were buried at crossroads, usually with a stake through the heart, to deter them from walking. Ideally, the wood used was from elm or ash, the protective trees, and the stake served the same purpose as a cockerel on a weather vane - acting as a guard against evil from the four points of the compass.
But Betty Wilkins may not be completely forgotten. Is it sheer coincidence that a famous crossroads grave situated to the north of Poulton, Gloucestershire, is called Betty's Grave and possibly dates from the time of Wilkins' death? If Clack Mill Betty was not a Bitton parish girl then could her remains have been returned to an earlier home? No one has ever satisfactorily explained who the restless Betty of Betty's Grave was, though a few stories do linger on. One tells that she was a housekeeper who poisoned herself. Another, somewhat intriguingly, suggests that she was poisoned by her employer. The past is a cold and creepy land.
