The French once planned to burn Bristol and create havoc — but the wind blew them to Wales instead. But the episode gave rise to one of east Bristol’s best-known streets. - Armoury Square in Easton is a quiet backwater off Stapleton Road — and a memorial to the last invasion of England. At least it would have been the last invasion of England if the wind hadn’t been blowing in the wrong direction, which took the invasion fleet to Fishguard instead.
It happened during the war between Britain and the French after the French Revolution, which the English government feared would lead to similar uprisings in this country. It didn’t happen, but war was declared anyway and around 1,200 French soldiers were gathered in Brittany with the aim of burning the port of Bristol — a project ‘of the utmost importance.
The idea was that the French would sail up the Avon after dark, set fire to the part of Bristol to windward, and let the wind do the rest. ‘If the enterprise be conducted with dexterity’, said the troop orders ‘it cannot fail to produce the total ruin of the town, the port, the docks and the vessels and to strike terror and amazement into the very heart of the capital of England’.
But, as usual, God was on the side of the English and contrary winds blew the French over to Wales where they landed at Fishguard and were mopped up by local militia men. But when Bristol discovered to its horror that it had been the real target, nearly 1,000 men rushed to join the new Bristol Volunteers and signal posts were erected on Brean Down, the Holm islands and Lavernock Point near Cardiff. A gun battery was built on Portishead Point and another at Avonmouth and gun-ships stationed in the Avon — just in time for peace to be declared.
But a year later, the war resumed and Bristol was supplied with extra guns for the Volunteers.
Gone for ever - The Demolition gangs of the 1960s gradually gave way to 1970s conservation, and 20 homes in Armoury Square were saved. Fear of invasion was again growing and the government agreed to build a depot to store 20,000 guns on land just outside the city by what is now Stapleton Road. The depot contained a big armoury, two brick magazines for ammunition, storage, a workshop and guard house complete with cells for disobedient soldiers.
There were houses for the officer of the Bristol garrison, the armourer and storekeeper, and a barracks for 24 soldiers, and the whole place was surrounded by a seven ft wide ditch. It must have been the cosiest posting in Britain with only the vegetable garden to tend, the notorious night life of Lawford’s Gate five minutes away — and no sign of the enemy.
And that was it. The war ended in 1815 and two years later the soldiers left their peaceful life to continue their military careers. The armoury was then rented out for various purposes until 1831 when the Guardians of the Poor bought it for a new asylum for poor lunatics. It had a brief resurgence as a military base during the Bristol Riots when troops from Cardiff were based there, and the asylum then moved to Stapleton.
The house in Armoury square where Mr Packer started manufacturing his chocolate using just heat from a kitchen fire, old saucepans and paraffin lamps.
The whole armoury complex was finally sold for housing in what was first named Armoury Place in 1849 and finally Armoury Square in 1852. Some of the armour houses do still survive as nos 12,19, 39 and 46, and it was in no. 46 that Mr Packer began his famous chocolate company which is now in Greenbank. Nothing remains of the old armoury building but its memory is kept alive in the local pub, the Armoury Tavern.
A full and detailed history of the armoury and the square, with illustrations, appears in Bristol’s Vanished Georgian Armoury and The evelopment of Armoury Square by John Bartlett and John Penny of Fishponds Local History Society.
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