More things in Bristol
Oct. 30th, 2008 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhythmaningAfter our boozy dinner (though not too boozy – what with me being unwell and everyone else looking after kids and stuff), I walked back to the centre of Bristol. I tend not to walk around cities much in the middle of the night, so I was surprised by how busy it was. There were people everywhere – very drunk people, mostly, and a lot of police watching the very drunk people. They all seemed to be staggering much more than I had the day before; but then they weren’t driving, too.
We were all meeting up for lunch, so I had a morning to kill. Actually, that makes it sound like a chore: it wasn’t at all. I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
I wanted to go to the Red Lodge…
I wanted to go to the Red Lodge, the companion piece to the city’s Georgian House. We had been to the Georgian House when we visited Bristol last autumn – it was a fascinating place (but not at all photogenic; or maybe it was just the mood I had been in); we had tried to go to the Red Lodge then, but instead decided to visit the park. I wanted to make up for that omission.
It was a really worthwhile visit. The building dates from 1580, and has much of the original panelling, plaster work and fittings. It was fascinating, especially seeing the elaborate carved wood panelling after the stonework in the cathedral. The mantelpiece was large and heavy, dominating the room – and intricately carved, too.
I had a long conversation with one of the women there – she was a conservator, I think, and she told me a lot about the building. As a lodge to a larger house which stood on the site of Colston Hall, several hundred yards away, there were no kitchens or servants quarters: food would have been brought up from the main house. The lodge was used mainly for entertaining – the hosts and their selected guests would apparently move to lodge after the main meal to sample sugar-based sweets: the cost of sugar made it prohibitive to provide for all guests.
I wandered the several rooms for ages; it really was a fascinating place.
I had timed my visit perfectly, though, to make it to my friends’ house for the time we’d agreed; so I needed to think of something else to do after I received a message saying that they’d all be late – they’d decided to visit the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Me, I went to the nearby Bristol Museum.
Last time I was here, they were piecing together a Roman mosaic floor in the main atrium. This time, though, that space contained an information desk. I decided just to ramble around. It is a typical local collection – albeit that they have some excellent paintings and other artefacts. It covers everything from dinosaurs and geology through paintings (a lot of Victorian artists – Turner, Burne-Jones and other pre-Raphaelites) and some lovely silver to a collection of pianos and other keyboard instruments; indeed the pianos are housed together with some of the dinosaurs – quite a strange juxtaposition, that. Hanging over the information desk is a biplane.
I came across an installation by Richard Long, a local artist and one of my heroes. So of course I took some photos. (Bizarre: when I google “Delabole Bristol Slate Circle”, my photograph of the work comes above a reference to the work on the Bristol Museum website!)
I love the textures and contrasts Long creates in his sculpture: it is so tactile.
Walking to my lunch, I managed to get lost. I knew I was very near – I have been there so often – but the streets form a bit of a warren nearby. I had to phone for directions. But the distraction meant I stopped to look at the buildings. In Chandos Road, a narrow street with restaurants (“more than a restaurant”, boast one; it turns out they will deliver your dinner party for you – that was what we’d had the night before – and it was very good), bars, cafés and laundrettes, my eye was caught by the detail above the window lintels: illustrations of what look to me to be Chinese men. I have no idea why this might be – perhaps an indication of where the original owner had made his money? Or maybe it was an opium den?
Lunch was good, too. And, surprisingly, sober. I think middle age has hit us!
We were all meeting up for lunch, so I had a morning to kill. Actually, that makes it sound like a chore: it wasn’t at all. I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
I wanted to go to the Red Lodge…
I wanted to go to the Red Lodge, the companion piece to the city’s Georgian House. We had been to the Georgian House when we visited Bristol last autumn – it was a fascinating place (but not at all photogenic; or maybe it was just the mood I had been in); we had tried to go to the Red Lodge then, but instead decided to visit the park. I wanted to make up for that omission.
It was a really worthwhile visit. The building dates from 1580, and has much of the original panelling, plaster work and fittings. It was fascinating, especially seeing the elaborate carved wood panelling after the stonework in the cathedral. The mantelpiece was large and heavy, dominating the room – and intricately carved, too.
I had a long conversation with one of the women there – she was a conservator, I think, and she told me a lot about the building. As a lodge to a larger house which stood on the site of Colston Hall, several hundred yards away, there were no kitchens or servants quarters: food would have been brought up from the main house. The lodge was used mainly for entertaining – the hosts and their selected guests would apparently move to lodge after the main meal to sample sugar-based sweets: the cost of sugar made it prohibitive to provide for all guests.
I wandered the several rooms for ages; it really was a fascinating place.
I had timed my visit perfectly, though, to make it to my friends’ house for the time we’d agreed; so I needed to think of something else to do after I received a message saying that they’d all be late – they’d decided to visit the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Me, I went to the nearby Bristol Museum.
Last time I was here, they were piecing together a Roman mosaic floor in the main atrium. This time, though, that space contained an information desk. I decided just to ramble around. It is a typical local collection – albeit that they have some excellent paintings and other artefacts. It covers everything from dinosaurs and geology through paintings (a lot of Victorian artists – Turner, Burne-Jones and other pre-Raphaelites) and some lovely silver to a collection of pianos and other keyboard instruments; indeed the pianos are housed together with some of the dinosaurs – quite a strange juxtaposition, that. Hanging over the information desk is a biplane.
I came across an installation by Richard Long, a local artist and one of my heroes. So of course I took some photos. (Bizarre: when I google “Delabole Bristol Slate Circle”, my photograph of the work comes above a reference to the work on the Bristol Museum website!)
I love the textures and contrasts Long creates in his sculpture: it is so tactile.
Walking to my lunch, I managed to get lost. I knew I was very near – I have been there so often – but the streets form a bit of a warren nearby. I had to phone for directions. But the distraction meant I stopped to look at the buildings. In Chandos Road, a narrow street with restaurants (“more than a restaurant”, boast one; it turns out they will deliver your dinner party for you – that was what we’d had the night before – and it was very good), bars, cafés and laundrettes, my eye was caught by the detail above the window lintels: illustrations of what look to me to be Chinese men. I have no idea why this might be – perhaps an indication of where the original owner had made his money? Or maybe it was an opium den?
Lunch was good, too. And, surprisingly, sober. I think middle age has hit us!
