Photo Archive: “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”,Blackwells Bookshop, Park Street, Bristol, 27/04/15.

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Alice, Alice in Wonderland, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Book shops, Brillustration, Bristol, English Literature, flemingo, illustration, Lewis Carroll, Mad Hatter, Mad Hatter's tea party, Park Street Bristol, Pink, Queen of Hearts, tea party, tea., window, window shopping.

“It’s always time for tea“.

This depiction of the Hat Hatter’s tea party is by a Bristol based illustrator’s social group called Brillustration and I hope they are still cheering up the shop windows along Park Street, despite Blackwell’s Bookshop relocating since my last visit to Bristol [if this article in the Bristol Post is to be believed].

The Queen of Hearts – “OFF with their heads!”

I have never read “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll, but of course I’m aware of most of the key features of the plot and I have occasionally found myself, coincidently, following in the author’s footsteps [Lewis Carroll and I have the dodo from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in common for example].

I suppose that is what makes something iconic – when you get recognition with the bare minimum of effort!

The View from The Georgian House Museum, 7 Great George Street, Bristol, 05/08/15.

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Bristol, City Hall Bristol, cityscape, E Vincent Harris, English Literature, Georgian Britain, Great George Street Bristol, John Pinney, Museums, Romantics, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, slavery, sugar, The Georgian House Museum Bristol, views, William Wordsworth

The view from The Georgian House Museum isn’t what it was, for better or worse; I don’t know the history of Bristol well enough to say. E Vincent Harris’ Bristol Council House, opened by The Queen in 1956 and renamed Bristol City Hall in 2012, dominates the centre of this cityscape; with Bristol Cathedral barely visible behind.

I would imagine that, in the 1790s, when John Pinney, sugar merchant and slave plantation owner, moved into the property he would have been able to see as far as College Green. The Georgian House Museum’s website suggests that John Pinney would have been able to see ships in the harbour from his bedroom window; you’d have hardly thought it looking at this view!

The Museum’s website also informs me that the Pinneys entertained the Romantic poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth at their Great George Street home. What would they have made of the view from this window, I wonder?

“The Llandoger Trow” Public House, King Street, Bristol, 27/04/15.

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Alexander Selkirk, Bristol, Daniel Defoe, English Literature, King Street Bristol, Llandoger, Privateer Tyger, Public houses, pubs, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robinson Crusoe, The Llandoger Trow, Treasure Island, Trow

“The Llandoger Trow“ stands out as one of the most remarkable buildings I noticed on my last visit to Bristol, purely from an architectural stand point initial, but the more I have looked into the history of the public house, the more remarkable it gets!

The timber-framed building dates from 1664, but the story really begins with the retirement of a certain Captain Hawkins [very “Treasure Island“, don’t you think?] sailed his trow, a flat-bottomed barge typical of the craft common to Bristol, across from Llandogo in Wales for the last time and decided to get into the pub trade. By 1755 the name “The Llandoger Trow” was well established.

Tradition has it that Daniel Defoe met the buccaneer and castaway Alexander Selkirk, who is generally recognised as the inspiration behind Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe“, at “The Llandoger Trow” and it is thought that the public house inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s description of the “Admiral Benbow” in his swashbuckling adventure “Treasure Island“.

The sign of “The Llandoger Trow” was mentioned in a recruitment notice for the privateers ship Tyger in a Bristol newspaper, so the place must have been well known to seafarers of an adventurous persuasion who more than likely formed the 280 man crew of the 36 gun ship, commanded by John Nielson, who received his letters of Marque in 1757.

In Victorian times the public house reinvented itself as a theatre pub, as it gained an association with the Theatre Royal, which is further up the street, and in the Second World War two of the building’s gable ends were destroyed by the Luftwaffe during a bombing raid, leaving the three you can see today.

It strikes me that “The Llandgor Trow” is an inspiring place, whether you know about it’s history or not, so I’m sure it will survive for future generations to admire.

Sources:

Mysterious Britain & Ireland. co. uk. http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/avon/hauntings/the-llandoger-trow-bristol.html

The Bristol Post. http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Pie-pint-pirates-haunt/story-11238978-detail/story.html

Key to the City. co. uk. http://www.keytothecity.co.uk/bar.php?Id=154&CityId=2&From=Family&Enabled=Yes

…and The National Archive for details regarding the privateer Tyger. http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/record?catid=-5191317&catln=7

Thomas Hardy Related Blue Plaque, Barclays Bank, 10 South Street, Dorchester, 29/04/15.

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architecture, blue plaques, brickwork, Dorchester, Dorset, English Literature, South Street Dorchester, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy

“This house is reputed to have been lived in by…”.

To paraphrase my good friend and occasional travelling companion Mr. W, “Perhaps, one day, someone will write about us looking at this blue plaque and then they might put up a blue plaque to commemorate the fact we looked at it“. I didn’t mention it at the time, but I did think to myself, “Getting the fact we looked at this blue plaque in print and published, on the internet at least, might be easier than you think!” My travelling companions and I are not well versed in the works of Thomas Hardy, although we had all heard of his novel “The Mayor of Casterbridge” and you can’t visit Dorchester for long before you find out Hardy’s fictional Casterbridge was based on Dorchester, so the presence of a Thomas Hardy related plaque did not come as a surprise. The unusual wording of the plaque was quite a talking point though, because it seems to commemorate the occupation of the building by a fictional character, although I think the spirit of the message is meant to convey that Thomas Hardy’s description of the house in the novel was inspired by this rather grand building. Perhaps I should read more Hardy before I return to Dorchester in the Summer and then I might see the place very differently.

I used that cash machine.

So, in the hope of getting our pseudonyms on a blue plaque in Dorchester one day, I would like to put into writing that Mr. W [my advisor in all things relating to Dorset folklore, public houses and micro breweries], Mrs. W [my advisor in all things historical, knitted or baked] and myself, Mr.B, [flâneur, blogger, man of letters and amateur photographer] stood outside number 10 South Street, Dorchester, on the afternoon of the 29th April 2015.

Now, how long do we have to wait for a blue plaque?

pS. Speaking of knitting, have you seen the Dalek Mrs. W knitted for me? It’s quite something!  https://anticsroadshowblogspot.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/souvenirs-knitted-dalek-wimborne-minster-september-2011/