Bristol - A Walk around Castle Green

Bristol - A Walk around Castle Green.

Castle Green area

From Victoria Street to Christmas Steps.

3. Continuing our walk around Castle Green . . .

Garden of St Peters Church

The Gardens of St Peter's church

There is an interesting story that I heard when I was at school about the tall building, Castle Gate, in the background of this photograph. It appears, so the story goes, that when they were fitting out this building that all the carpets were delivered late on a Friday afternoon. When the building was opened for work on the following Monday every last roll of it had been stolen, the figure being banded about at the time was that around £6,000 worth of them had disappeared.

As we leave the church moving east towards the far end of Castle Green there are other interesting features. One of these is the old castle Sallyport. This was a tunnel that led from the castle to the outer defence ditch.

The Sallyport

The red sandstone that most of this area of Bristol is built on, and gives the area of Redcliffe its name can be clearly be seen in this photograph. The way is now barred, but the nearby plaque explains that when this was being excavated the skeleton of monkey was discovered at the bottom of the steps. An examination of the skeleton showed it to be an Indian species, so Bristol must have had some sort of link with the country sometime before 1665 when the castle was demolished.

Near the old Sallyport there is the new fountain that has been installed. Someone has obviously put a lot of thought and effort into this structure and it is a great looking piece of work.

Fountain on Castle Green

Detail of the fountain on Castle Green

Detail of the fountain

Continuing along Castle Green to our right we next come across a group of five young trees. These were planted on 5th November 1995 and commemorate the D-Day landings in Normandy during WWII. There is a tree for each of the landing beaches attacked. This Garden of Peace was opened by Lady Pamela Hicks, patron of the Bristol and District Branch of the Normandy Veterans Association. The stones used for the plaques were bought back from Normandy.

Garden of Peace ~ Commemorating the D-Day Landings, Normandy ~ 6th June 1940

4. Turning our back on the river we walk the short incline to the remains of the castle. Unfortunately there isn't a lot left of it, just part of the foundations. The demolition of 1665 was very, very complete.

The remains of Bristol Castle

One thing you'll notice is that the water well and privy pit are less than 20 feet apart. No wonder that people suffered some terrible diseases!

Under one of the shops (Bentalls) in The Horsefair, Broadmead is the site of another supposed Plague Pit. In 1954, excavations made it clear that what for years had been thought the site of a plague pit was in fact part of the old St James's churchyard.

If we make our way to the main shopping area and up the incline back towards Bristol Bridge you may wonder what happened to the River Frome, well, it's still following it's old course, except that nowadays it's actually below Fairfax Street, making it's way to the city centre.

As you walk back up to the junction of Wine, High, Corn and Broad Streets you should bear in mind that these, along with Castle Green was the extent of the City of Bristol up to around 1600.

5. Standing on the junction there are many sites to be seen. To your left is Bristol Bridge, half left is St Nicholas Church, now the Tourist Information office, and St. Nicholas Market which is always worth a visit. Behind these can be seen the tower of All Saints church. To your front is Corn Street which contains the Corn Exchange and its famous Nails. The Corn Exchange now contains another market. Here can be purchased photographs of old Bristol and Bristol Blue glass. On the corner of Broad Street is Christ Church. At the bottom of Broad Street is St. John's Gate - one of the old city gates.

This page created 15th March 2000, last modified 11th December 2005

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