8 min readAre you looking for some tantalising Bristol tales to impress your friends? Or learn more about the city's lesser-known stories?
We asked Sheila Hannon from Show of Strength Theatre Walks to tell us some of her favourite trivia about the city - Show of Strength runs several guided walks in Central Bristol, as well as Bath, Bedminster, Keynsham, St George and Clifton. Book onto one of their tours to hear the full stories hinted at below, or see if you can complete the set!.
But first, please cast your vote (no registration needed - voting takes just a few seconds) for Sheila to win Visit England’s Tourism Superstar award! VOTE HERE
A is for... Archie Leach
Hollywood’s leading man, Cary Grant, was born Archie Leach in Bristol and continued to visit his hometown for the rest of his life. Is there a more extraordinary rags-to-riches story?
Learn more on the Cary Comes Home: From Bristol to Hollywood walking tour.
B is for... Bedminster, and Brink's-Mat
£13,000,000 was laundered through a Bedminster Bank following the Brink's-Mat robbery in 1983, around half of the total stolen in the heist. But what happened next, and which other Bedminster locations played a part of this dark story?
C is for... Clifton
…‘the handsomest suburb in Europe,’ said poet laureate John Betjeman. But there was lots of dodgy stuff going on in Clifton throughout the ages too, from a jilted barmaid’s brush with death to the forger sentenced to death who ended up with his face on a banknote.
D is for... Amelia Dyer
Britain’s most prolific serial killer – ‘The Angel Maker’ – was born and raised in St George. Amelia Dyer offered desperate women a solution at a time when it was impossible to support a child alone, financially and socially.
E is for... executions
- John Horwood was the first person to hang at Bristol’s New Gaol (a book bound in his skin can be seen at M Shed)
- Local serial killer Amelia Dyer was executed at London’s Newgate
- Francis ‘Lucky’ Greenway escaped the noose in Bristol and was instead transported to Australia
- Edward Teach, AKA Blackbeard, the infamous pirate, was decapitated in 1718.
F is for... Frankenstein
Mary Shelley wrote most of FRANKENSTEIN in Bath’s Abbey Churchyard when her life was just as extraordinary as her story. There's now a museum dedicated to her creation in the city, Mary Shelley's House of Frankenstein, which goes beyond the novel and also covers how the story of Frankenstein has become an icon of theatre, film, comics and more.
G is for... graveyards
There are so many interesting tales to be discovered in Bristol's cemeteries and graveyards: a world-class impostor in a lost Bedminster graveyard; a brilliant 18th century engineer forgotten in Clifton until Show of Strength restored her grave; a ghost in Avonview cemetery, and a forgotten medieval burial ground in Bristol's medieval Old City.
H is for... Hippodrome to Hollywood
Cary Grant told how he found £5 outside the Bristol Hippodrome stage door when he worked backstage there as 13-year-old Archie Leach. True?
I is for... Isambard
Isambard Kingdom Brunel is celebrated for designing the Clifton Suspension Bridge and tenaciously campaigning to get it financed and built. A lesser-known figure is engineer Sarah Guppy, who, after patenting a design for a chain bridge in 1811, went on to mentor Brunel on his design for the iconic Clifton Suspension Bridge, but is mostly a forgotten part of its history.
J is for Javasu, land of Princess Caraboo
Kidnapped by pirates, she jumped ship as it passed Bristol and swam ashore – or so she claimed. After charming 19th century society and provoking a scandal, she returned to Bristol for a very different life. This extraordinary woman is buried in Bedminster with a memorial to match.
K is for... Keynsham
Chocolate, fossils, trains, ghosts, a once great abbey, and one of the largest Roman settlements in Britain. Keynsham has been overshadowed by Bath, but it has more than its fair share of tales to tell!
Image - Keynsham Abbey ruins
L is for... La Concorde
A notorious English pirate who operated around the West Indies, Blackbeard’s flagship was a captured French slave ship, possibly built in Bristol.
M is for... medieval Bristol
There’s plenty of the old city still to see, you just have to know where to look, whether its for a Saxon well, or where Henry VII visited in the late 1400s. Dame Edith Comfrey knows it like the back of her hand, and she’ll prove it to you on the Magic and Mayhem in Medieval Bristol walking tour.
Image - Magic and Mayhem in Medieval Bristol
N is for... Nero
Nero is the name of the Celebrated Lion who ate a man in the yard of Bedminster’s old Bull Inn, a building which has also doubled as a local courthouse and had several other incarnations through the years. Stop in for a drink here as part of the Blood and Butchery in Bedminster tour.
O is for... the ‘orrible ‘istory of ‘otwells
One of Bristol's most historic areas, located between Bristol's Harbourside and Clifton, which has been immortalised in paintings by JMW Turner, and was a popular area for those 'taking the waters' of the Hotwell spring in the 17th and 18th centuries. It's also the location for a new tour coming soon from Show of Strength.
P is for... pirates
One of the most famous is Long John Silver from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, who, in the book, owns the Spyglass Inn, reputedly based on The Hole in the Wall pub on the corner of Queen Square in Bristol. As mentioned above, Bristol is also believed to be the birthplace of one of the most feared pirates who actually existed, Blackbeard.
Q is for... Queen
In 1574, Queen Elizabeth I entered Bristol in triumph along Redfield’s Church Road, a major route for perhaps a thousand years. Bristol spent a thousand pounds on entertaining, but bankrupted the city in the process.
R is for... Redcliffe
This riverside neighbourhood was Bristol’s first suburb, where the rich merchants lived. The colourful houses of Redcliffe Parade are one of the most photographed sights around the Floating Harbour, but the view from this terrace is also worth a look. It's where the wealthy kept a keen eye on their ships as they came and went from Bristol's busy docks.
Image - Redcliffe Parade overlooking Bristol's Floating Harbour
S is for... Mary Shelley
Shelley wrote most of FRANKENSTEIN in Bath - just down the road from Bristol – when her name wasn’t Mary Shelley. Hers is a story of lies, concealed births, false identities - and worse.
T is for... Teach
Did you know that Blackbeard's real name was Edward Teach, and he was supposedly born in the late 1600s on Guinea Street in Redcliffe? Look out for the pub sign on the street that bears his likeness! Join the Blood, Blackbeard and Buccaneers tour to hear from Ted the fact-checking parrot, who teases out the truth about Teach. Probably.
U is for... urinal
Yes, really. There’s a fabulous Victorian urinal in the East Bristol suburb of St George, where you can still see the words ‘Please adjust your dress before leaving’ embossed on the ironwork. Bristol also has three Grade-II listed urinals on Whiteladies Road in Clifton, Mina Road in St Werburghs and on Horfield Common.
V is for... VII - King Henry VII
…who entered Bristol in triumph in 1486 through St John’s Gate after defeating Richard III in Battle (he visited Keynsham & Brislington too). The gate is the only one of Bristol's medieval city gates to still be standing, and you can find it on the junction of Nelson Street and Broad Street in the Old City.
Image - St John's Gate
W is for... Wellesley Tudor Pole
Finder/keeper of the Holy Grail on Royal York Crescent. Yes, you read that right!
X is for... X marks the spot
Pirate treasure maps? Fiction, put into the public consciousness by Robert Louis Stevenson in Treasure Island. You can follow a trail around Bristol's Harbourside, which notes key locations from the book.
Y is for (Royal) York Crescent
Famous residents of this grand terrace in Clifton include the last Empress of France, writer Angela Carter, TV detective Eddie Shoestring, and Wellesley Tudor Pole (mentioned above).
Z is for... Operation Zephyr
A police sting in Bedminster uncovered something very unsavoury in a takeaway, leading to multiple convictions and one of the biggest police investigations the city has seen.
Want to learn more about these fascinating tales from Bristol's history? Here are the Show of Strength tours you can book onto:
Want to learn more about Bristol history? You can read more here:
