BRISTOL

Bristol - The Avon Gorge

The Avon Gorge area around the Suspension Bridge

The little area shown in the map above is well worth a couple of hours visit. The area is dominated by the Clifton Suspension Bridge which is easily Bristol's most distinguishable feature.

Clifton Suspension Bridge from Nightingale Valley

An unusual view of the Suspension Bridge from Nightingale Valley

This magnificent piece of engineering was planned by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1829, but the building of it was plagued by financial difficulties. Work started on it in 1831 but the money soon ran out and work stopped for five years. It was finally opned on 8th December 1864, but Brunel didn't see it as he died in 1859. It has a span of 702 feet and is 245 feet above the river.

Nightingale Valley

The walk along Nightingale Valley will lead to Leigh Woods and the Iron Age Stokeleigh Camp. The earthworks are now partially wooded but the massive defensive ditches can still be seen. Leigh Woods covers about 190 hectares (430 acres). Originally owned by St. Augustine's Abbey, at the dissolution it passed to Sir George Newton and later to the Smyth family of Ashton Court. The woods now bear little evidence of the extensive seventeenth century quarrying. Lime was quarried here and there were several lead and iron smelters that used locally produced charcoal.

A view of Clifton from Leigh Woods

The photograph above shows several interesting features. From the left there is the massive bulk of Vincent's Rock, on top of which is the Observatory and Camera Obscura. To the right and below the Observatory is the Giant's Cave, the entrance to which is inside the Observatory. To the right of this is the Suspension Bridge. This Bridge sees to have a fascination for some people, pilots have flown light aircraft under it, people have bungy jumped off it, been thrown from it or decided to end it all by from jumping from it. Perhaps the most interesting thing about these falls is that some of them actually survive it, not bad going considering it's a drop of 245 feet. Parts of the gorge have to be inspected and loose rock dislodged before it falls into the roadway and there is now an extensive network of netting to prevent such falls. The alpine style canopy was built to protect the Portway and its users from further rock falls but the position of it still leads many of us to believe it's there to stop suicides from crashing into the roadway.

In 1885, Sarah Anne Henley, after a lover's quarrel, tried to commit suicide by jumping off of it. The large Victorian dress she was wearing acted as a parachute and she survived the fall. One account was heard of this is that a carriage driver refused to take her to hospital, she had landed on the riverbank and was covered in mud and he didn't want to get his carriage messed up. Incidentally, she went on to see her 85th birthday.

One of the luckiest people alive must have been a toll collector on the bridge in the 1960's. A woman had taken her coat off and left it on the parapet. A gust of wind took the coat and it hung on a rivet just out of reach. The toll collector leant over to get it and fell off. People can well remember the interview he gave to a local television company a couple of days later. NOW that's a story to tell your grand-children.

Bristol Suspension Bridge

In 1957 a Flying officer, Crossby, who was based in Filton, tried to fly under the bridge. It all went wrong for him and he crashed into side of the gorge at an estimated speed of 450 mph.

Reseachers were looking through some old newspapers for research into something else at the Bristol Reference Library and found the following article from the Bristol Mercury dated Saturday 14th August 1841 (exactly the same story appeared in the Bristol Gazette, dated Thursday 12th August 1841) :-

An accident, which might have been attended with fatal effects, took place on Saturday last. Two gentlemen who had arrived by the railway on a party of pleasure, were induced to pass over the river in the basket attached to the iron rod, which passes from side to side. This rod of course bends in the centre, and a rope is afixed to the basket to draw it up as it approaches the land. On the above occasion, the party had arrived within a few feet of the landing, when the rope suddenly broke and the basket was rapidly impelled back to the centre of the rod. Considerable alarm was felt by the spectators on the shore, by the passengers in a steam-packet passing beneath at the time, and more particularly by the affrighted tenants of the basket themselves, who however, were ultimately relieved without any personal injury. This dangerous practice of passing over will soon be put a stop to, as the contractors have at last succeeded to the satisfaction of Mr Brunel, in welding iron for the chains of a proper consistancy, and there is now every prospect of the work progressing as soon as the weather shall prove favourable.