Exploring local history, places of interest, architecture, cool engineering projects, cartography, pedestrian-centric urbanism, and stuff like that, as my interest/motivation allows.
Based in Bristol and the West Country, although I reserve the right to make videos about places elsewhere if I ever get myself organised enough to travel.
The southern plan was not an imposition of the Franco regime. On the contrary, the local authorities were the ones who wanted an ambitious project. Franco's government wanted to invest as little as possible. The mayor put pressure on the government and even criticized Franco publicly on this issue. In the end the government was forced to invest in the most ambitious plan in order not to be exposed, but in return the mayor was forced to resign and the government made the city pay dearly for it. The diversion has remained a dry channel because there are reservoirs upstream that prevent water from reaching the river except in times of heavy rains that usually occur mainly in autumn-winter. There have been demands for the new southern channel to be a river in practice and to flow into the sea and allow an ecological flow to carry the necessary sediment to prevent erosion of the beaches south of the city. The southern plan not only served to protect the city from the risk of floods that have been occurring for centuries, but also served to make a ring road that prevented a lot of traffic through the urban area of the city, especially transport of goods to and from the port. If we add to this the urban park that crosses the city, the quality of life took a huge leap. In general, the benefits outweigh the harms. 19:32 Yes there have been even heavier rains in times after 1957. For example in 1982 and 1986. The work therefore seems to have been successful in preventing flooding.
I just came across a video about the decoy bunker on claverham drove: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Cb29uJBgeJA.html thought it might be of interest to you.
If you do end up making a video on the Harbour Railway, you might like to consider getting in contact with the M Shed or even the working exhibits' operations manager directly - there are a load of volunteers and staff who would love to talk about it, and you might be able to come and look around the workshop here.
Harsh but fair on the 1960s optimism that sited a cafe and playground in the loop of a motorway junction. Human use aside, the rest of the landscaping (I mean the modelling of ground levels and shapes) is calm and well-scaled, respectful of the landscape beyond. Thanks for the enjoyable polemic, will be very useful for my essay on Crowe.
I grew up on windmill hill and our house deeds also said it was called mutton hill. The understanding we had was they had sexed up the hills name to sell housing :). Apparently there used to be a manor or farm house at the top but it was demolished in the 60s for a planned road that never happened.
What a delight and so informative while being highly entertaining. I am using this as part of my preparation for going toThe Victorian Society of America summer school in London in a few weeks. Thank you. N. Meade
Hi PD, I spent my early childhood in the Windmill Hill/Victoria Park/Totterdown area of Bristol area back in the 50's - when the tramac on the roads used to bubble in the sun such that we could pop them with matchsticks. Also building 'Dandies' from scrap wood and a few old pram wheels and testing our bravery on the steepest paths in the park.... thanks for airing this video!!! My reason for writing is more to do with whether you are OK as it's a number of months since you published this.... Hope you are well and finding more strange West Country anomalies to entertain us. With grateful thanks and best wishes🤗
@@PedestrianDiversions Well I for one would really miss your dry and entertaining take on the sometimes strange stories you uncover..... by pure coincidence I was trying to get lunch at the Lethbridge Arms pub next to the fives wall in Bishop's Lydyard today.... I had no idea the wall had a purpose until seeing your film. What else can we mortals do to get you back on the road? Sincerest best wishes!!!🤗
Thank you for sharing this fascinating video. I believe my great grandfather was a groom at Remount. I have only just worked this out so if anyone reading can signpost me to any other info about the ASC at Shirehampton I would be very grateful. Thank you.
Many past residents of South Bristol will remember Henry Bradbeer's little house (and the two either side of it) standing like a lonely, defiant island in a desolated Totterdown wasteland. It was an iconic image of the time, and remained so into the 1980's.
A good idea would be digging a tunel from temple meads or before that making a stop there and then connection the city centre like they did in Berlin with the Nord - Süd Tunnel, were you can get from Gesundbrunnen (Nord Kreuz) to Südkreuz.
Found your channel a few days ago and have been binging ever since! I grew up in the Westbury-Trowbridge area so I'm quite attached to Bristol and Bath, being the only real places nearby. The South West is often forgotten (when I went to uni and was asked where I was from, barely anyone knew where Wiltshire was!), so I appreciate your chats and musings about the area!
Very interesting. We had similar sites to the east of my home city of Hull. They mimicked the docks, with large pools of water and strategically placed lamps. They were not full size however. It was deemed that the shapes and lights would be enough to fool the Luftwaffe. They are still visible on Google maps if you know where to look on the north bank of the Humber. Subbed.
Cheers for this informative and entertaining video. Lived in this city all my life and was vaguely aware of 'Bristol Byzantine' but learnt a lot from this video. Guess I'll have to go watch your other videos as well then.
could you do something on The Dings area? ive been trying to find photos of the old convalescents house that was on the corner of oxford street and union road opposite dings park until demolition in 2010ish. There's a plaque on the wall of the houses that replaced it with an inscription about a Mabel Tribe that i can't seem to find much about.
The hagiography in engineering is off the scale, railways are among the worst for it. Just look at how Gresley is inflated into something far more than he was when so many revolutionary things really had origins outside of his head and were suggested or best understood by people under him. Other people involved in work carried out under him then had their character assassinated in literature written about the period of his time at the top and immediately afterwards. Got so nasty it was even written that no one attended his successors funeral. It's kinda crazy how far some will go to build legend around their hero and how much we people will lap it up for whatever reason, national pride needing a figure head, a specific business needing that legend of the founder or saviour... We never really learn, look at Musk today... or Gates, or Bezos.
We lived on Wells Rd just up from the three lamps. We had everything within walking distance. We had a lovely childhood living in Totterdown. A 5 bedroom house with a garage at the back, this would have been where the horses were housed, it was 2 stories the hay etc would have been stored upstairs. I miss living in Totterdown I feel our history has been wiped out. So sad.
Thank you for both videos. One smallish point: The route map at 1:19 does not include Bristol St Phillps station, opened in 1870 as the terminus for (some?) Midland services until the station closed to passengers in 1953, with services transferred to the Midland shed (aka Digby Wyatt shed) at Temple Meads.
Hi Chris, I was at the Lamplighters with my eldest Lad this weekend. tried to find your brilliant video on youtube, but seems to have gone. Any chance of putting it back on?
Thanks. I’ve been enjoying your videos for some time. This one was particularly interesting as I had walked along Spike Island some years ago between the Balloon Fiesta and Temple Meads. Away from the inevitable traffic, it was quite pleasant. I wonder what Sylvia Crowe’s near-contemporary Ann McEwan would have made of it.
Wow, really interesting video about the aquaduct. I grew up in south Bristol and would often go to Dundry and down to Winford and Chew Magna area but never knew the aquaduct existed. I'll plan to take a visit next time I'm in that area as I now live in Canada.
have you searched in the British newspaper archive online, the papers, millions of them, date back to the 1740s...ish....but I use them constantly as the Victorians often ran historical columns and articles harking back to earlier times, the dissolution subject pops up a lot as well as local archaeological discoveries with accompanying articles.
