A house through time

sparklefizz

I lived in an old Georgian House in Clifton, I shared a flat with friends. It wasn't all wealthy in Clifton back then and there were some lovely and interesting houses to rent.

I have also lived in Hotwells and Montpelier.
having grown up in the east end of London where we were always a melting pot, I found the divisions in Bristol at that time uncomfortable.
There was a lot of racism and well I didn't really enjoy it there. I left and would not return even though my daughter went back to live there for about 20 years...in St George and Easton.
That's how I know Bristol has changed a lot. I have friends that love it there and also a granddaughter, but I was never at home there, though I did enjoy Clifton Village while I was there. I have been back and can see it is very much more wealthy now.

vegansrock- sadly tens of thousands of men were killed in WW1. The battle of the Somme went on for a long time. My great uncle was killed there early in. He was in the machine gun corps 'suicide squad.'
Sad times for families all over the world.

I enjoyed this series, particularly the one on WW1, where 3 sisters of the house lost their husbands. My grandparents lived in Bristol and my grandfather and 2 of his brothers served in France, my GF was in the battle of the Somme, I wondered if he would be in the same regiment as the husbands in the house. Most probably. One of his brothers was killed in 1918, I wonder if he was with the husband of the sister who was killed at the same time.

pinkquartz You were living in the Clifton area of Bristol which is one of the wealthier parts of Bristol, many of the houses built with Bristol merchants' money earned not only from the slave trade but from importing spices, sugar, coffee etc into Bristol Docks. The merchants didn't want to live close to the docks which stank and were unhealthy. They built houses in Queen's Square and then began moving further up the hill towards the Downs and so Clifton grew.

You lived in Bristol for 5 years in the early 1980s. I moved to the Bristol area in 1985 and I am still in the area so have clocked up 35 years! I worked in the City Centre for a number of years. There was some racism all over the UK in the early 1980s but I have to say I didn't notice that Bristol was in denial of its history of slavery.

You say that St Paul's was a "no go area" for white people and it's true that it was "a dodgy area" as you describe it ... like many inner city areas, it was run down and tatty, and there was a great deal of crime and drugs. There were riots in St Paul's in 1980 when the police were stoned with bricks and bottles. A lot of people didn't choose to live there, whatever nationality or colour they were, just because of its bad reputation and the higher levels of crime ... as in many London or other inner city areas. It wasn't a ghetto.

There are various areas in Bristol where people of different ethnic groups flock together .... there are Greeks and Greek Cypriots who meet up at a church just off the M32, there are groups of Chinese, Polish, Ethiopian and Jewish people, with shops and supermarkets and places of worship catering for them, and many other nationalities.

I have got it wrong about the date of Philippa Gregory's book and must have read it later on. My apologies.

Sparklefizz at you now seeing what many of us see!

Pinkquartz I think in one of the programmes it was said that the captains of boats were sometimes allowed to keep a slave or two, as a perk of the job, hence contributing to a black population in the UK.

There was a famous court case which found that no man could be a slave in England and Wales. Presumably if there were slave markets in Bristol they must have been beneath the radar or the authorities turned a blind eye to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_v_Stewart

sparklefizz

In general the attitude towards people of ethnic origins and with dark coloured skins was racist.
you can be surprised but mostly Bristol had a t that time put it Slave past in the past.

BTW the book A Respectable Trade didn't come out until the 1990's. -1995
I am talking about the 1980"s.
I was pleased to read that book because the truth was starting to be known.

Namsnanny

I lived in Bristol for about 5 years in the early 1980's. I lived in the Clifton area not far from Whiteladies Road.
The local knowledge at that time was that there had been a small "slave market" held up the hill by what is now known as Blackboy Hill back in the day of Bristol's Slave Trading ships.
Bristol was keeping a lot of it's local history hidden but i found books in the local Library in Clifton that shocked and saddened me.

At that time Bristol was divided racially and geographically, with St Pauls being a "no go" for white people.
I had friends who lived close by and it was a dodgy place. At least the city is less racially divided up now. Having come from London I was unhappy at how divided Bristol was. I had lived in areas in London where none of this segregation was evident.
I saw Bristol as being a racist city with terrible attitudes at that time.
I know that now the internet says it is NOT true about Blackboy Hill but really we don't know.
Given the attitudes I came across back then I did believe it.

Same as we knew that the Slave Ship's owners did unload some of the slaves into their cellars, rather than send all to the plantations some were sold on individually. I can't remember why.

Bristol stopped being used by the slave trade because the ships used were too big to fit into Bristol Docks and the Trade moved up to Liverpool instead.

pinkquartz When I lived in Bristol I was aware of how much denial there was in Bristol of it's Slave Trade

I have lived in the Bristol-Bath area since 1985 and Bristol's history of the Slave Trade was the first thing I learnt about Bristol when I moved here. I am surprised at your comment.

Shortly after arriving in the area, I read Philippa Gregory's novel "A Respectable Trade" which is a well-researched novel about Bristol's history.

Thanks for that rightmove link SueD. I wouldn't want to live in that area myself, but I imagine they will get a quick sale as it has been featured on the TV programme.

For all those people who think David Olusoga is gorgeous and who couldn't understand why I said further back that I didn't like him ...... well, he has grown on me.

Pinkquartz … I'm interested in your comment about buying African slaves

^ at the local slave market.....^

Could you tell me where that was situated, or anything you know about it please?

I absolutely love the series. It's fascinating to learn more about the history of people, ordinary folk (instead of the school topics of wars, politics etc.) and I'll watch those episodes I've missed on catch up.

I've just watched the first episode. So shocked at the slave trade the British were part of. Why did it take so long to abolish it? It just made me think again, how could people actually treat fellow human beings in this way? I will never understand. And whether you agree the pirate was innocent or not, why were they hanged slowly to maximise suffering. Sometimes human beings can be so utterly cruel and evil.

Oh goodness... my friend and I both think he's gorgeous!

He did smoke a pipe, Lemongrove! He survived setting his waste paper basket and his jacket on fire. . He gave up when my mum stopped smoking, about ten years before he died.

I still like the smell of pipe tobacco.

I loved the programme and the house - I especially love Georgian architecture. I also noticed from the floor plan that two bedrooms appear not to have access to a bathroom? There is also little outdoor space, but that's city living I suppose. Looking forward to the next series - I'm really interested in Social History and could listen to David Olusoga till the cows come home, his voice is just so relaxing, I should listen to it when I can't get to sleep!

It was probably smoking his pipe SueD that kept him going,
At least that was what my maternal grandfather used to say about himself (94) and it was said in all seriousness.?

Yes, the photos they had from post-war, it looked as though it might fall down! It’s very similar to my childhood house, two rooms per floor. We also had a basement which was home to the scariest spiders! ? ? ?

I noticed that you can’t access a toilet without going through a bedroom and you have to get to the kitchen via the front room and dining room, so that corridor of flagstones is a bit of a waste of space.

Thank goodness for modern healthcare. My dad must have been the lucky one, he lived to be 92 with barely a day of illness to bother him.

What's not to like about a tall, handsome, intellectual young man.
He shone on Sky news, expressing his views on the teaching of history and racism. It was a clear and useful discussion.

Just had a look at your link SueD ...such a lovely house isn’t it, although having just watched the last part of this series the house didn’t look very salubrious at times, grimy and run down from the outside at least.200 residents since it was built!
How sad that your relatives all died from TB, such a horrible disease.Although the present pandemic has made us more aware that there are still killer diseases/viruses about, we have become so used to feeling safe, with modern medicines that we rarely give the health worries that people routinely had, a second thought.

It’s gone on the market today. A friend in Bristol tells me they have had five viewings already. It’s interesting to look at the floor plans - there isn’t much more to see, really.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-80999032.html

When I lived in Bristol I was aware of how much denial there was in Bristol of it's Slave Trade past so I am cynical about the dismissal of the reasons for the names Black Boy Hill and Whiteladies Road.
And it is pure coincidence that Whiteladies leads onto Black Boy Hill.
Maybe there are other reasons apart from slavery but nothing takes away the real history and it is shocking.

She died of TB, Lemongrove, as did two of my dad’s siblings.

Coincidentally, though, my mum’s aunt died of Spanish flu. She was a nurse in the naval hospital in Plymouth and succumbed to it there. She’s buried in a Commonwealth War Grave.

SueDonim you may find that your relative died from the Spanish Flu, my great grandfather died of it that year aged about 45.

That’s grim, as if once wasn’t enough. . I have a friend whose family were bombed out of Clydeside. She speaks of it with absolute clarity and in minute detail, yet she wasn’t even born until post-war. It’s as though the trauma has somehow passed down through the generations.

Well, of course SueDonim. My parents were bombed twice in London. When they came out of hospital the first time, they moved in with my Grandma, and then she was bombed too.