Category Archives: 11 WW2

04 Medieval, 08 Victorian, 11 WW2, 12 Post WW2

Castle Park

Castle Park probably has the most varied history of any part of Bristol. The area has been host to a medieval castle, the busiest shopping street in Victorian times, a Second World War bomb site and a gigantic car park while the council made plans for a civic centre and museum before it became the park we see today.

Bristol Castle Keep. Image courtesy of Bristol Library, Braik. VII.i.8
Bristol Castle Keep. Image courtesy of Bristol Library, Braik. VII.i.8

Local Learning have worked with several schools to explore this varied history and ran a Council for British Archaeology funded Archaeology in the Park event in 2007. We involved actors to take audiences through time to the sallyport providing castle courtiers with an escape route, to peer inside the 18th century houses that once stood on Bridge Street and to join the queues for one of the first talkies showing at the Regent Cinema.

In 2012, Local Learning collaborated on the Lost Cinemas of Castle Park with the University of the West of England, where members of the public helped to create a series of Top Trump cards depicting the many picture houses that had once existed in this area.

Most recently, Bristol City Council have commissioned Local Learning to create new interpretation materials to help tell the story of Castle Park.

http://www.bristolblitzed.org/

08 Victorian, 11 WW2

Eastville

Victorian resources (these were created for St Michael-on-the-Mount Primary School, but contain generic content that can be applied elsewhere).

Eastville Park was one of the earliest and largest of Bristol’s municipal parks; a previously unbuilt on area protected from the relentless urbanisation towards the end of the 1800s. No one then would have believed that it would play such an important role in time of war. During the Second World War, like many parks and green spaces most of Eastville Park became allotments to help keep Bristolians fed as food ran short. Searchlights and a barrage balloon were also set up in the park, along with the big guns on Purdown to help defend the aircraft factories at Filton from enemy bombers.

The Purdown gun crew made up of local Eastville men including Tom Allen (middle row 2nd from left)
The Purdown gun crew made up of local Eastville men including Tom Allen (middle row 2nd from left)

Gunner, Tom Allen from Cottrell Road, local volunteers managing the searchlight, people tending their allotments to supplement their insufficient rations all featured in plays produced by Year 2 students from Glenfrome Primary School as part of a Local Learning Heritage Schools project. Their research and plays helped to inform an app allowing visitors to the park to better understand the significance of the area in the Second World War.

http://www.bristolblitzed.org/

04 Medieval, 07 Georgian, 08 Victorian, 11 WW2, 12 Post WW2

Stokes Croft

www.bearpitheritage.org.uk

Victorian resources (these were created for St Michael-on-the-Mount Primary School, but contain generic content that can be applied elsewhere).

Stokes Croft is one of the oldest routes in to Bristol. It will have originated as a track between fields certainly by about 1000 years ago if not earlier. By the 1100s it was probably being regularly used by travellers coming to markets in Bristol, particularly St James’s Fair.

The route became the boundary of the new parish of St Pauls as the city’s population increased. This invisible line runs right through what is known locally as the Bearpit, indicating the parish boundary between St Pauls and St James.

The Bearpit Heritage launch event, 2015
The Bearpit Heritage launch event, 2015

With funding from Heritage Lottery, Bristol City Council and Historic England, Local Learning have worked with a number of primary and secondary schools, colleges and the wider community on a variety of long term projects. Our activities covered the area’s 1000 year history, ranging from Year 3 students’ graphic novel, piecing together the story of one of the monks buried with a jet amulet at St James’ Priory to City of Bristol Art and Design students’ architectural drawings of Avon House North that bridges Stokes Croft like a concrete gate to the city.

http://www.locallearning.org.uk/stokescroftmenu.html