BS 5

Easton, St. George, Redfield, Whitehall, Eastville, Speedwell, Greenbank, Barton Hill

Easton

Easton is an inner city area of the city of Bristol in the United Kingdom. Informally the area is considered to stretch east of Bristol city centre and the M32 motorway, centred on Lawrence Hill.

Its southern and eastern borders are less defined, merging into St Philip's Marsh and Eastville.

The area includes the Lawrence Hill and Barton Hill estates.

In administrative terms, Easton comprises .the electoral wards of Easton and part of Lawrence Hill.

It is located within the Bristol West constituency.

The electoral ward of Easton includes parts of the localities of Netham and Whitehall, and a large part of Greenbank. The Bristol & Bath Railway Path passes through the ward.

In the medieval period Easton lay within the Royal Forest of Kingswood in the manor of Barton Regis.

The name Easton is probably derived from the Anglo-Saxon East Tun meaning East Farm. The earliest documentary reference to Easton is Chester and Master's 1610 Map of Kingswood, which depicts three settlements: Upper Easton, which was centered on Easton Road, Lower Easton, which was centered on St Marks Road, and Baptist Mills, on the east bank of the River Frome.

In the post-medieval period the area became increasingly industrial with large scale extraction of coal, clay and sand occurring across the area. In the 19th century most of Easton was developed for housing.

In the late 1960s and 70s large areas of Easton were demolished to make way for new roads (A4320 Easton Way and the M32 Motorway) and housing estates.

The name Banksy is synonymous with Easton.

There are several Banksy artworks in Easton although the council inadvertently painted over one and another has had a tin of paint thrown over it. This was possibly done in response to the house that the art was attached to being sold as a piece of Banksy graffiti with a house thrown in for free.

St George

St George is a district of Bristol, England on the Eastern edge of the city boundary.

St George was originally outside the city boundary in Gloucestershire, the terminus of the tram line from Bristol was in Beaconsfield Road.

It became a civil parish (Bristol St George) in 1866, and briefly an urban district from 1894 to 1898.

The parish and urban district were absorbed into Bristol in 1898.

Troopers' Hill chimney is a local landmark. St George was a mining area from the early 19th century (coal and fireclay) until 1904 when the last fireclay mines were abandoned.

Troopers Hill was declared as a Local Nature Reserve (LNR) on 22 June 1995.

John Armitstead, a colliery proprietor, had a pit between Church Road and Whitehall Road, where he installed a pumping engine for raising coal.

Power was generated from water by means of a fire and the device was called a fire engine. It stood on land which came to be known as the Engine Ground, this is reflected in the name of a local public house, the Fire Engine.

The St George Fountain is a Victorian water fountain on the main Church Road which forks at this point to become Clouds Hill Road to Kingswood and Summerhill Road to Hanham.

Redfield

Redfield is an area situated in East Bristol though it is represented in Westminster as part of the Bristol West constituency.

It includes the stretch of Church Road from Verrier Road to the western boundary of St George’s Green, Victorian-era landscaped parkland.

It is adjacent to the neighbourhoods of Barton Hill and Russell Town to the South, St George to the East, Whitehall to the North and Lawrence Hill to the West and Pile Marsh to the South-East.

To the east of the area lies St George Park, an elegant Victorian suburban park. "Bristol City Council: Parks and open spaces: St George Park".

Redfest is an independent arts and music festival seeking to bring music, film, cabaret, comedy, animation, graffiti, photography, art and fun to community of Redfield.

Redfest is run by a group of volunteers from the local community and is entirely reliant on public donations, support and sponsorship from local businesses and grant funding where available.

Whitehall

The local green space is Whitehall Playing Fields or Packer's Ground as it was known, taking its name from the local chocolate factory - Packers.

In 2006 the company, known as Elizabeth Shaw, announced the closure of the site. In 2014 plans to convert it into flats and housing.

The playing field is to be fully redeveloped for sports use for The City Academy Bristol school.

In part of the area, adjoining Easton and Eastville, there are still many streets and houses from the Victorian and Edwardian eras and in the part, adjoining St George, Bristol is the Gordon Estate with houses that were built in 1936.

This area originally consisted of market gardens and the new estate was built on the rhubarb patch and as a result, rhubarb was quite commonplace in many gardens.

Some houses ("villas") overlook the adjoining St. George Park and these have small balconies.

Newer houses have since been built on the former Co-op Bakery and Rose Green High School sites.

There is a plaque on the original school wall, which was retained, giving some history, about John Wesley having preached on this site.

The comedian Bob Hope lived for a time in Whitehall Road in his youth.

Local Churches include Crofts End Church, established in 1895 by George Brown, as a Christian mission for miner's children it became known as 'The Miner's Mission' or Crofts End Mission.

Still part of the local community and very much a family church its current Pastor is Andrew Yelland.

The Parish Church of St Ambrose has undergone some change in latter years, with its vicarage being demolished and replaced by a sheltered housing scheme for older people.

The church hall was refurbished as part of this and is now The Beehive Centre with day-care facilities.

The Almshouses were retained and are still in use.

Whitehall Chapel has been retained and restored, but no longer for church purposes. It is now in use as offices. The 48th Bristol Scout Group Headquarters adjacent to the site of an old garage was originally sited on the new housing site. When the garage was originally redeveloped and enlarged, the garage company paid for the Scout Group to have a new building built.

The Saint Leonard's Scout Group merged with the 48th Bristol Scout Group and they then became the 32nd Bristol (1st Whitehall) Scout Group. The patron saint of Scouting is Saint George also, the name of an adjacent local district.

Eastville

Eastville is an inner-suburb of the English city of Bristol, situated between Easton and Frome Vale wards in the north-east of the city. In the north-west its boundary is the M32 motorway, which roughly follows the River Frome.

Eastville Stadium (on the west bank of the Frome) used to be the home of Bristol Rovers Football Club, as well as being a site for greyhound racing and speedway, but this site has now been developed by IKEA.

Eastville Park is a large park with a small lake, just to the east of the M32.

The lake at Eastville Park was instigated as part of a social scheme by Ernest Bevin (a well-respected westcountryman), who later became Minister of Labour under Churchill in the coalition government of WW2 and later Foreign Secretary in the Attlee Government from 1945 until his death.

A large railway viaduct known as 'The Thirteen Arches' for obvious reasons, once ran through the area, roughly parallel to the current Muller Road; it was demolished in 1968.

This was part of the Clifton Extension Railway.

The Eastville Workhouse, originally the Barton Regis Union Workhouse, was a former French Prison which was bought from the Government circa 1832.

In 1930, the Stapleton Workhouse, originally the Bristol Union Workhouse, became the Stapleton Institution and by the Second World War the site was mainly used for the care of the mentally ill and the elderly; eventually becoming Blackberry Hill Hospital.

Crofts End (also known as Clay Hill) is a suburb of Bristol. It is an industrialised area, with many small Victorian houses, built when this area was a coal mining community.

Crofts End Church was established in 1895 by George Brown, as a Christian work for miner's children in The Freestone Rank, Whitehall Road, it became known as The Miner's Mission. It is now part of the local and much wider community but still very much a family church. The pastor is Andrew Yelland.

The church was built on a site bounded by market gardens, a brick works and Deep Pit Colliery.

When The Beaufort Arms, then known as The Beatem and Wackem and now called The Wackum Inn was the place where most miners spent their hard earned wages! Hence the need for a children's work in that community.

Another local church was Clay Hill Chapel which was demolished when the industrial estates were built.

Speedwell

The Speedwell area had many small coal mines in the 19th century.

In the 1970s some of these old workings had to be stabilised in the area of Speedwell secondary school. A goods only railway connected the collieries and the Peckett and Sons locomotive works (also known as the Atlas Locomotive Works) with the Midland railway at Kingswood junction.

In the early 1970s, shortly after Avon county council was formed, approximately half of Speedwell secondary school burnt down, the school was partly rebuilt.

A number of 'temporary' prefab houses, built in the housing shortage after the World War II, existed in the west side of the suburb into the 21st century.

Greenbank

Greenbank is a small informal district in the city of Bristol, England nestling between Easton to the west, Eastville to the north-east, Clay Bottom and Rose Green to the east, and Whitehall to the south. The area is mainly one of 1890s terraced housing with some present millennium housing on the north eastern edge of the cemetery.

Nearly all of the housing is in the north-east of Easton electoral ward, though the road Greenbank View and the cemetery are in Eastville electoral ward.

The Bristol & Bath Railway Path forms the north eastern boundary of Greenbank and provides a traffic free route not only the two miles into Bristol but also 13 miles to Bath along one of the most scenic non-traffic cycle routes in the country.

The Path is seen as being a valuable public asset by the people of Greenbank and other adjoining areas, with a 2008 campaign to stop it being used as a bus route garnering much local support.

The Path also provides a valuable green haven in the form of a linear park in what is a very densely populated part of Bristol.

The Greenbank cemetery

In the north eastern section of the cemetery are the memorials to the civilian dead of the Bristol Blitz of 1941. The area is very moving with some graves containing the remains of three generations of Bristolians. In the very north west corner of the cemetery, separated from the civilian graves is a military cemetery with graves from British and Commonwealth servicemen as well as the graves of German Luftwaffe crew killed during the Bristol Blitz as well as Italian Mariners killed in action.

In more recent years the cemetery has become a popular location for local dog walkers, which divides local opinion. It has also been in the news, owing to the community of van dwellers who live just outside the cemetery.

There are a few distinctive buildings within the area:

The Elizabeth Shaw chocolate factory (famous for its 'Famous Names' and 'Chocolate Crisp' brands)
Chapel in Greenbank Cemetery
Castle Green Mosque
Local church informally known as the "Lego Church", designed by Sir Frank Wills and built in 1902. It's currently the Easton Islami Darasgah

Barton Hill

Barton was a manor just outside Bristol mentioned in the Domesday Book as Bertune apud Bristov, and later in 1220 as Berton Bristoll.

In Saxon and early Norman times the manor was held by the king, and was known as Barton Regis. The manor gave its name to Barton Regis Hundred, the hundred. Sloping ground at the southern end of the hundred, leading down to St Philip's Marsh, became known as Barton Hill.

Barton Hill Cotton Mill

The Great Western Cotton Factory on Great Western Lane was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in the early 19th century.

Great Western Cotton factory opened in 1838 and closed in 1925. From a plan of 1839 the sheds are seen to have contained up to 1600 looms. The main spinning mill was demolished in 1968.

Cultural references

Road and rail bridges crossing the Bristol Harbour feeder canal, Barton Hill, Bristol

Space rock band Alien Stash Tin originated from Barton Hill and vocalist–guitarist Jon Wisbey still lives in the area. The regeneration of the area is also the inspiration behind the band's song "Rat in a Maze".
Barton Hill is also a stronghold of drum and bass with notable artist and Mercury Prize-winning Roni Size/Reprazent having a studio in the area, with his latest album showing Barton Hill on the front cover of Return to V.
During 1977 and 1978 Barton Hill Youth Centre was a popular venue for punk and new wave acts to play. Among the bands that appeared were Siouxsie and the Banshees, Subway Sect, Slaughter and the Dogs, Adam and the Ants, Cocksparrer, Wayne County and the Electric Chairs and local acts including The Media, The Pigs and The Pop Group. It was probably Bristol's first live punk venue. However escalating violence at the gigs contributed to its short lifespan as a concert venue.
Arts
In Bristol Studio is an Art and design studio which has been based in the old Cotton Mill on Great Western Lane since 2006. The Cotton Mill has been converted into work space for artists, designers and makers. Also providing workshops for ceramics, printmaking and woodwork.
Barton Hill Artists are a free collective of locally based artists who specialise in community art activism and community based public installation. Their work includes a 90-foot-long (27 m) mosaic on the Ducie Road railway bridge in the area, and a mural in Gaunts Ham Park, in nearby Lawrence Hill, Bristol.
The Twisted Pixie, who produces psychedelic art for part of Bristol's psytrance scene, also resides in Barton Hill.
Travelling Light is a children's theatre company based at Barton Hill Settlement.

The Greek Orthodox Church of St. Peter and St. Paul

St Peter and St Paul, Bristol is the church of Bristol's principal Greek Orthodox congregation. It is situated in the Lower Ashley Road.

The building was constructed in the 1840s as the Church of St Simon. It was designed by S.J.Hicks and S.B Gabriel with a nave, chancel, north aisle and chapel.

Lower Ashley Rd, Bristol BS5 0UL

Official website:

BS 5

Easton, St. George, Redfield, Whitehall, Eastville, Speedwell, Greenbank, Barton Hill

Easton

St George

Redfield

Whitehall

Eastville

Speedwell

Greenbank

Barton Hill

Cultural references

Arts

The Greek Orthodox Church of St. Peter and St. Paul

Attractions of BS 5 Area

Avonview Cemetery

Banksy's Cat and Dogs

Banksy's The Masked Gorilla

Banksy's Valentine's Day Mural

'Banksy's Cupid'

Coombe Brook Nature Reserve

Crofts End Church

Dundridge Park

Easton Jamia Mosque

Eastville Park

Greenbank Cemetery

Greenbank Masjid

Magpie Bottom Nature Reserve

Netham Park

Pavilion opening times:

St Aidan with St George C of E Church

St Ambrose and St Leonard’s, East Bristol Whitehall

St George Fountain

St George Park and Skate Park

Facilities and features:

St Luke's Barton Hill C of E Church

St Patrick's Catholic Church

Troopers Hill Nature Reserve

Banksy's
Cat and Dogs

Banksy's
The Masked Gorilla