I’ve just returned from a few days in Bristol and, after my first visit to the city, I have to say I’m quite taken with the place. It has a definite buzz and plenty of character. If you like public street art, it’s hard to beat.
Of course, there are plenty of works from its most famous activist street artist Banksy, but there are visual treats throughout the city. One of my favourites is Wolf Boy, a huge piece of work occupying five floors of a building on Quay Street. It was created by Spanish mural specialist Aryz.
On the other side of the city at Stokes Croft, Banksy’s 1999 work The Mild Mild West still adorns the side of a building now occupied by a barber.
Colour is a big theme in Bristol, with many of its houses and public buildings painted in bright primary or pastel washes, prominent on the city’s hillsides.
The ‘floating’ harbour, which maintains its constant water level thanks to a diverted section of the tidal River Avon to the South, is home to, among other things, an ostentatious yacht permanently moored at Wapping Wharf, which sports a non-functioning helicopter on its deck. The American-built craft has been renamed Miss Conduct, rather appropriately, as its owner Thomas Flight was fined £12,000 and ordered to pay costs of £25,000 when found guilty of committing consumer-protection offences against his property tenants. A mannequin captain was keeping watch when I passed.
Less nefarious, but still an odd spectacle on the water, was the crew of the Cornish Pilot Gig named after another famous creative collective of the city, Massive Attack, who were rowing the traditional boat while sporting party hats.
In Bristol’s Millennium Square, the silvered exterior of the globe structure of the We The Curious planetarium enables visitors to reflect on this public space, which also hosts a statue of famous Bristolian actor Cary Grant.
On the outskirts of the city, next to the affluent suburb of Clifton, stands another monument to creativity, this time to that of renowned Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. His designs for the Clifton Suspension Bridge, spanning the Avon Gorge 101m above the muddy river were the blueprint for this massive engineering project. Brunel, the son of French engineer Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, would die in 1859, five years before the official opening of the structure.
Finally, a Bristol institution in the best quirky tradition of the city is the Bag of Nails pub in Hotwells, run by owner Luke Daniels. Best known as the ‘cat pub’, the no-frills hostelry is home to a dozen or so felines who have the freedom of the pub but mostly snooze in cardboard boxes on the bar or in the window, occasionally coming to life to coax a stroke from customers. Not one to suffer fools gladly, Mr Daniels has created a series of rules chalked on boards next to the bar. The first is a bit rude to quote here, but others include: ‘no annoying screeching’; ‘if you don’t like Johnny Cash shut up or go away’; and ‘no snogging, judo or Stairway to Heaven.’. Aside from that, prices for the selection of ales and Belgian bottled beers are competitively priced. Like Bristol, the Bag of Nails is definitely worth a visit.
