CHIS Newsletter Autumn 2025
FROM THE CHAIRMAN.
Our recent Newsletter stimulated customary compliments but one article that prompted unexpected enthusiasm was RoseMary Musgrave’s about the W.G. Grace plaque in Victoria Square. Our sister Chislehurst Society was able to tell us of a blue plaque on the house in Mottingham to which he moved from Clifton. On one occasion an anxious caller knocked on the surgery door, asking the servant: “Is the doctor in”? “Yes, and he’s just scored fifty”.
Thinking of that eminent Victorian makes me reflect on the name of the more eminent Queen and the numerous places named after her. Australia has a state, British Columbia a provincial capital and London a railway station. In Bristol there is Victoria Park, Bedminster, and in Clifton Victoria Square.
Unusually we have PRINCESS Victoria Street – a name I have noticed elsewhere only on a public house in the Cromwell Road area of West London. The Clifton name seems to record a visit in 1826 when as Heiress Presumptive she stayed in the Assembly Rooms (now Clifton Club) and waved from the balcony to the throng below.
Today Princess Victoria Street has become Princess Victoria CAFE works on this LTN being almost complete, allegedly over budget (nothing unusual these days) and a week later than planned – in part owing to accidental damage on two occasions to the cellars of The Quadrant. Outdoor eating and drinking are being blessed by the astonishingly sustained hot weather.
Opinion remains divided, opponents not reassured by the fact that cyclists and scooter riders in the centre of the passage are not required to dismount. Nor are the gates being closed at the stated hours each evening. The impact of diverted traffic on surrounding roads and negative impact on a number of traders are causes of grievance too.
Waterloo Street’s road and pedestrian surfaces are, to put it mildly, in a sorry state and getting worse since it is used more by traffic diverted from Princess Victoria Street. For years CHIS advocated making Boyce’s Avenue and King Street a pedestrianised area, stylishly adapted, and free of traffic including cycles and scooters. At present the outdoor cafés flourish but in a haphazard setting, rendering it tricky for pedestrians to negotiate narrow pavements and numerous tables and chairs. Had the area been appropriately adapted there would be no need for the Princess Victoria Street scheme and its impact.
The fact that the former W H Smith site is still bare except for ugly hoardings has been mentioned as one reason for inaction. If only the space could become a public grassed square!
TALKS.
“Bristol’s Lost City” gave Clive Burlton the opportunity to add new information and film to his absorbing account of The White City, a project completed in the fateful year 1914 (such a shame) but surviving in many different and diminishing forms till the end of World War Two - when the housing shortage was so acute that what remained of the once great site was lived in by homeless families. Evidence of the need for us to hear about that project is that even the former Mayor and architect George Ferguson had no knowledge of it!
On September 16 our new season opens stylishly with a talk by the always witty and enlightening Professor Ronald Hutton, not on Cromwell (subject of two acclaimed studies by him) but on one of his many interests “Traditional Fairies”.
Please note also:
October 21: “Bristol Past and Present” by Chris Biggs, illustrated by many of his own photographs and preceded by a brief AGM.
November 18: “John Proctor” donator to the city of the Lord Mayor’s Mansion. Professor Brian Vincent wrote an Alpha Series booklet on the Alderman and will talk about his life – especially interesting just now when the future of the Mansion is subject to much speculation.
November 9 is Remembrance Sunday, when the CHIS wreath will be laid after the regular service at St Andrew’s churchyard, probably at 1.30 pm. It will be best to check the time.
This being the Eightieth Anniversary of VJ Day makes the ceremony especially poignant.
GARDENS.
Congratulations to Nick Sargent and Caroline Dix not only for their continuing work on restoring and maintaining the once Lost Gardens of Arlington but on their being helped by neighbourhood volunteers to devote a well-deserved BCC grant to continue the transformation. A celebratory BBQ in the gardens gave great pleasure and raised more funds. The complimentary article in Clifton Voice was most welcome too.
Doubtless encouraged by the fine weather, many people toured the Open Gardens in June, again drawn not just from Bristol.
Also popular was the Film Festival week in the Mall Gardens but alas not so its aftermath and impact on residents. The grass has been badly damaged and, shamefully, officials prevented locals from gaining access to give desperately needed water to plants in the raised bed opposite Clifton Club. We have written to our Councillors asking them to help so that next year the ground will be restored in the way that it is required on the Downs.
SEATS.
The bus shelter and seating opposite Christchurch were damaged and removed many weeks ago but have still to be replaced. Both are sorely missed, by users of four bus routes. Our Councillor is pressing the bus company to do the work, the seating especially.
Irritatingly, having at last put up correct timetables for the number 8 bus in Pembroke Road the company has taken out the glass, left it on the ground and not put up any timetables at all!
THE FORMER ZOO NORTH CAR PARK.
For over two years CHIS and other concerned groups have insisted that the Downs Committee (of Councillors and Merchant Venturers) abide by the 1861 Downs Act of Parliament in its ruling about Downs usage.
For more than twenty years the Zoo authorities enclosed Downs’ land to form the North Car Park, not having applied for planning permission so to do, which would in any case have dubious legality.
At present the area is returning to its earlier state of grass and trees, fenced off to prevent parking. The long-established right of way running by the side of the Zoo wall is at our instigation being given legal protection.
However, funding for maintenance of the Downs is constrained. The CHIS Committee invited the Lord Mayor and Master of the Merchant Venturers to a meeting in order to discuss the situation. The then Master attended and we generally agreed that we would always support initiatives to bring funds to the Downs as long as all were legal within the Act. However, a month later saw an application by the Downs Committee to use the North Car Park for commercial benefit that would necessitate closure. After years of requests for a meeting to hear the response to our solicitor’s letters it is good that one former Master and the current Master invited us to the Merchants’ Hall for such a discussion. Michael Bothamley spoke from his earlier experience as Deputy Chairman of the Downs Committee and David Freed as newly appointed Master of the Merchant Venturers. CHIS was represented by Christopher Jefferies, our legal adviser Adam Chavers and myself – in the Merchants’ Hall. The outcome was encouraging, especially with regard to future open-ness about proposal plans and subsequent discussions. Once the outcome of the Judicial Review is known, we will be able to co-operate with the Downs Committee in their complicated task of restoring the Downs in all respects including access that is harmful or destructive.
Brian Worthington.