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Baldwin Street and the Centre
Just a few hundred yards north of the GWS office, Baldwin Street leads west directly to the centre of Bristol and east to the Bristol Bridge.
The Centre
The Centre contains a wide variety of shops, restaurants and entertainment venues including the Hippodrome. As well as being a destination in its own right, it also sees large numbers of people passing through it on their way to the north or south of Bristol.
The Centre used to have water running right up to end of the pedestrianized area, but unfortunately this was changed in the 1960s. If you go to the west end of the centre, you can see the water and the harbour.
Baldwin Street
Baldwin Street is a central thoroughfare in Bristol connecting the Bristol Bridge and the east of the city to the centre. It features numerous office buildings, shops, restaurants and bars, including the comedy club Jongleurs.
At the end of the street that leads towards Castle Park and Bristol Bridge are St Nicholas Markets and St Nicholas Street. Here can be found several impressive buildings dating from the mid-Victorian era: the stone-fronted St Nicholas Chambers decorated with carved dragons; the Elephant pub; the Gothic Gresham Chambers with its sculpted heads. On the exterior of the Market house wall are the remains of the brightly painted and ornate cast-iron Queen Victoria Fountain, produced to celebrate the Queen’s fortieth birthday, one of several drinking fountains around the city.
Between St Nicholas St and Baldwin St is the former parish church of St Nicholas, originally built at the end of the 11th century and re-built in the 18th century by the same architect who designed Bristol Bridge. Like a large proportion of the historic heart of the city, the church sustained major damage during the first major Luftwaffe raid on Bristol in 1940, though the vault, which was being used as an air-raid shelter, survived. Also on St Nicholas Street is the former Fish Market, another example of Bristol Byzantine, which you can also enter on Baldwin Street. This distinctive red-and-yellow-bricked building is now the Old Fish Market pub and Thai restaurant. Another recommended local restaurant only a few doors down is Marco’s, a family-run business that serves traditional Italian cuisine.
At its opposite end, Baldwin Street leads into Colston Avenue. This road was formed in 1892 when the northern section of St Augustine's Reach - a man-made channel dug to divert the River Frome in the 13th century to meet the demands of expanding trade - was filled in. The focal point of this area, which has seen significant rejuvenation in recent years, is the central walkway and fountains leading up to the waterside and floating harbour beyond. At the other end is a statue of politician, philosopher and polemicist Edmund Burke who rejected philosophical rationalism in politics in favour of tradition and experience, and whose argument for the initial reform and argued for the eventual abolition of both the slave trade and slavery.
On one side is Bristol Hippodrome, which stages major West End productions, as well as pantomime, opera and ballet. Further up the avenue is St Mary-on-the-Quay, built for the breakaway Catholic Apostolic Church and designed by Richard Shackleton Pope, it resembles a Greek temple and originally was close to the water's edge. Opposite the church is a memorial to Edward Colston, a well-known 17th century benefactor of the city.
Corn Street & St Nicholas Market
Many of Bristol's eighteenth and nineteenth-century commercial and legal offices were clustered along Corn Street. Today the area is known more for its nightlife as a number of the buildings have been converted into restaurants, bars and clubs.
At the top of Corn Street is the Old Council House, now Bristol’s register office, which was built on the site of an old church in the 1820s. Next door is Lloyds Bank, built in an extravagant Venetian style using Bath and Portland stone during the 1850s. John Evan Thomas, who worked on the Houses of Parliament, designed the beautifully sculptured frieze on the building’s facade. Another impressive commercial building on this street is the NatWest Bank, designed by W B Gingell, whose work can be seen in several other noteworthy Bristol buildings.
During the week, Corn Street is the setting for a farmers’ market (Wednesday), which draws in produce from Bristol and the surrounding areas, and a craft market (Friday/Saturday). There is also an award-winning slow-food market, held on the first Sunday of every month, which is the first of its kind in the world.
Opposite Lloyds Bank is the Exchange. This was originally a meeting place for merchants, and was converted into a corn exchange in 1872. Still visible in Corn Street today are the four flat topped pillars, called the Nails, originally used to seal a transaction. Merchants would strike one of the nails, giving rise to the expression “to pay on the nail”. The clock was first installed in 1822 and later given two minute-hands, one for Bristol and one for London time, which was just over ten minutes ahead. Inside the Exchange, which stretches from Corn St down to St. Nicholas St is a covered market, selling a variety of goods from books to bric-a-brac and wholefoods to jewellery. St Nicholas’ Market, as it is commonly known, also houses a whole host of food stalls of various different origins and types, ranging from Bristol’s own Pieminister Pies and the Real Olive Company, to cafes serving Indian, Portuguese, Moroccan and Caribbean food.
Corn Street leads up to Broad Street, one of the four original streets that have made up the city of Bristol since Saxon times, which is home to a number of remarkable historic buildings. The former Bank of England building, now grade 1 listed, was designed by Charles R Cockerell, and has fluted columns and unadorned capitals in the Greek Doric style. On the other side of the street is the former Grand Hotel, now the Thistle Bristol Hotel. Completed in 1869, it has an Italian Renaissance design reminiscent of the buildings of Venice. A little further down Broad Street on the opposite side of the road is the former Guildhall, which was designed in the Gothic style by Richard Shackleton Pope. The sculptures of leading Bristolians on the front are by John Evan Thomas.
At the bottom of Broad Street is a beautiful Art Nouveau building belonging to the former Edward Everard printing works. The building, which caused a sensation in its day, was designed by Henry Williams, and showcases the Art Nouveau typeface Everard designed. The mural on the front - depicting the father of printing, Johann Gutenberg, and the pioneer of the Arts and Crafts movement, William Morris - was designed by W J Neatby who worked for Doulton & Co and went on to design the tiles in Harrods food hall.
At the end of the street stands St John’s Gate which is the last remaining part of the city wall, with Church of St John the Baptist built above it at the end of the 14th Century.
