Where I grew up
Not far from where I grew up in Bristol, U.K. is the Greenbank Cemetery. I walked alongside it twice a day for two years when I attended Eastville Junior Mixed School.
My four grand-parents are buried there, and by a nice bit of happenstance my cousin Janet now lives in a cottage within the cemetery. Her husband is the cemetery superintendent.
On the east side of the cemetery is a road called Royate Hill, (pronounced “Roy-ut”). Royate Hill is really two hills. It descends from Fishponds Road to a valley with a stream, then it ascends towards Whitehall Road.
At one time a rail line linking the old London, Midland and Scottish Railway to the old Great Western Railway crossed this valley using a magnificent brick built viaduct with nine arches. (A bit west on the railway line were the similar thirteen arches, demolished in 1968 to make way for a Motorway).
Of Royate Hill is a little district called Clay Bottom. It once was a semi-rural enclave within the City. We would cycle or walk through, passing a small holding which had goats, and in season picking blackberries.
Clay Bottom now has Town Houses. My friends Colin and Lorraine Cooper were amongst the first owners, probably in about 1968. Later on my brother Stephen and his wife Angela owned a home there.
Somewhere around here was the “Atlas Engine Works” owned by Peckett and Sons. In business until 1968, they made smaller railway (steam) engines which were greatly valued for “shunting” work at coal mines and ship docks.
From Clay Bottom we would walk through “allotments” (“Victory gardens in American English) to Stonebridge Park, a residential street on a hill. We’d get up to an area which had at one time been a coal mine (open faced mining I believe). There were “mountains and valleys” of coal scree, a great place to ride our bikes (strictly forbidden by parental types - but a lot of fun).
And also nearby was “The Lido”, an old quarry which’d been flooded, and then operated as a swimming hole (but you had to pay to get in!).
My friend Jeffrey Davies and I were there one day, we were about thirteen years old. We saw a young woman changing in the bushes, and we approached her with pubescent glee.
“Bugger off”, she said. So we did!.
My four grand-parents are buried there, and by a nice bit of happenstance my cousin Janet now lives in a cottage within the cemetery. Her husband is the cemetery superintendent.
On the east side of the cemetery is a road called Royate Hill, (pronounced “Roy-ut”). Royate Hill is really two hills. It descends from Fishponds Road to a valley with a stream, then it ascends towards Whitehall Road.
At one time a rail line linking the old London, Midland and Scottish Railway to the old Great Western Railway crossed this valley using a magnificent brick built viaduct with nine arches. (A bit west on the railway line were the similar thirteen arches, demolished in 1968 to make way for a Motorway).
Of Royate Hill is a little district called Clay Bottom. It once was a semi-rural enclave within the City. We would cycle or walk through, passing a small holding which had goats, and in season picking blackberries.
Clay Bottom now has Town Houses. My friends Colin and Lorraine Cooper were amongst the first owners, probably in about 1968. Later on my brother Stephen and his wife Angela owned a home there.
Somewhere around here was the “Atlas Engine Works” owned by Peckett and Sons. In business until 1968, they made smaller railway (steam) engines which were greatly valued for “shunting” work at coal mines and ship docks.
From Clay Bottom we would walk through “allotments” (“Victory gardens in American English) to Stonebridge Park, a residential street on a hill. We’d get up to an area which had at one time been a coal mine (open faced mining I believe). There were “mountains and valleys” of coal scree, a great place to ride our bikes (strictly forbidden by parental types - but a lot of fun).
And also nearby was “The Lido”, an old quarry which’d been flooded, and then operated as a swimming hole (but you had to pay to get in!).
My friend Jeffrey Davies and I were there one day, we were about thirteen years old. We saw a young woman changing in the bushes, and we approached her with pubescent glee.
“Bugger off”, she said. So we did!.
Loverly. Absolutely loverly.
ReplyDeleteI live on Gadshill Road, between Fishponds Road and Greenbank Cemetery. Some great memories and many things I didn't know about the area. The cemetery is beautiful, your cousin and her husband do a great job I just wish I could walk through there with my dog!
ReplyDelete