Aerospace Bristol and the Clifton Bridge: 1/5/23

 One would think that the people of Bristol would be sensible enough not to have two railway stations with nearly identical names, in similar places, on different railway lines to the north of the city, but they do; and it was only after I had arrived in Bristol Pathway instead of Bristol Patchway that I discovered my mistake. 

Getting here was something of an adventure in itself, since I got to the station just in time to miss the first train to Bristol Pathway -- the Cardiff train, incidentally -- and asked the station attendant where to catch the next one. He advised me to go to platform 5, which I did, but when I consulted Google it suggested the next train on Platform 3. So I returned to platform 3, and a few minutes later they announced that the train from there would be cancelled due to a 'problem' in the Severn Tunnel. So my question is: did he know about the problem ten minutes in advance of the announcement, or was he just wrong?

Anyway, there was only five minutes difference, and after a ten-minute trip I was in Bristol Pathway, when  I should have been in Bristol Patchway. Luckily there is only a couple of kilometres between them, so I was able to walk, through some more or less suburban areas, past a large park, and then through the big industrial estates where companies like Rolls-Royce are located. It was another sunny day, and by now I was getting quite warm with just three layers of clothing. Luckily there was a large Lidl supermarket in the middle of nowhere where I could buy a chocolate milk to stave off dehydration, and shortly after that the big, unremarkable hangars of the Aerospace Bristol museum. 

Two of these cover the history of the Bristol aerospace company, from the first box kites to rockets, missiles and satellites, for over 100 years. They also dabbled in cars, construction materials and other things along the way, and they are still going and still employing many Bristolians. There was a Hawker Harrier, some slices through commercial airliners, a massive double-rotor helicopter, and so on; but the piece de resistance is the last Concorde, stored in its own hangar, with a light show and an accompanying display room. The whole thing is very positive -- almost no mention of the fatal crash or the noise here -- and you can actually enter the aircraft, view the cockpit, and walk through the passenger section, which was a thrill. Certainly the engineering involved was phenomenal, even for now, and much more so for its time. So I can say that I have travelled in Concorde, though I only travelled about ten metres.

I had a return ticket, but rather than walk back to Bristol Pathway I caught a double-decker bus, and had a scenic view from the front of the top deck as we bumbled through the countryside around Bristol and eventually back into town. Here I went to a Greggs for, I think, the first time this trip, and had a sausage roll. It was only about one-thirty so I decided to approach the Clifton Suspension Bridge from the other side, walking up the hill past the museum, past Jacob's Wells, and through the rather arty bohemian suburb of Clifton itself before coming out on the parkland at the edge of the cliff which descends to the Avon. On the way there is a block of Georgian terrace houses which has a spectacular view, and is even longer than Bath's Royal Crescent, but not nearly so well maintained.

This is a popular spot. Half-a-day of sunshine and a public holiday had transformed Bristol from a grim dystopian wasteland to a bright and cheerful city full of happy smiling people. To cross the bridge is a pound for vehicles but free for pedestrians, but a good look down from the edge was enough for me. Like Sydney, there is an Observatory on the high ground near the bridge, which now houses a camera obscura.

I caught another bus back which went off-course because it was the driver's first day; and so I got to see some of the student residences and older houses behind the university. We swapped drivers in town, and I got out quite near the hotel. 

Tomorrow I plan to catch a train to Paddington -- the Severn Tunnel problem seems to have been fixed -- leave my luggage there for an exorbitant fee, and visit the Imperial War Museum before returning to Heathrow via Paddington around 6 PM. I think that's the last major museum in London that I haven't seen, although of course there are lots that I barely remember. And it's possible that I went there as a child -- the name has a faint resonance, though if I did, I certainly don't remember any details.

So if all goes according to plan the next, and last, post will be a couple of days away.