Introduction
The last house I owned in Bristol, England, before moving to Terre Haute, Indiana in October 2001 was in Brislington at 23, Manworthy Road. I bought the Victorian, three bedroom, end of terrace house in the early 1990's and I think I would probably still be living there if I hadn't of moved to the United States. It was one of the first houses I saw when I was looking for a new one and one of the most interesting of the 30 or so I looked at before making my decision.
Built in the late 1888s, the first map I can find showing Manworthy Road, along with Trelawny Road, is the 1894 map on Bristol's Know Your Place. These two were the first to be built at the top of Sandy Park Road, northwest of the old Brislington village and west of Rock hamlet.
Manworthy Road on the 1894 Ordnance Survey map
By the time the 1921 map was published, most of the surrounding area had been built on.
Early Problems
I almost couldn't buy the house. At the time I was working for a company that payed crap wages and the house was at the far end of what I could afford. The house inspection didn't go too well and said that the house's damp proof course needed completely replacing. The owners said they would foot the bill for that and it delayed my moving in for about a month.
Brislington in the south east of Bristol and was originally a small village. Development of the area started about 1880 and the house dated from that development. Many of the houses at the end of the terraces in the distrct were either built as, or converted to shops and this is what attracted me to the house. It was a little larger than most other houses in the street and of an odd design. One part was once used as a bakery and I was never sure if it was one big house with a bakery attached or whether it was a bakery and the house next door knocked into one. It had two front doors, marked 23 and 23A. Either way it was a fine house but it dd cause a few problems with the local tax people. When I first in I discovered I was being taxed on two separate properties, 23 and 23A. After a couple of meetings with the taxation office they agreed that I should only be paying one set of taxes on the house and agreed to chop the tax in two.
The House
Newbridge Road, St. Anne's in April, 1907
(image from Bygone Bristol: Brislington & St. Anne's On Old Postcards by Janet and Derek Fisher, 1992, ISBN 095146485X)
The shop on the corner is close to what I suppose my house once looked like.
23 Manworthy Road in February 1996
23 Manworthy Road - taken from Google Maps in June, 2012
Since I've moved, the house seems once again to have been converted into two properties. One nice touch is the digging up of the old contrete in front of the corner portion of the house and installation of a new lawn. The front door of that part of the house has been changed and it looks like a new skylight or maybe a solar panel has been added to the roof - perhaps the attic has been changed into a bedroom?
In June 2026, I received an email from one of the residents of 23, Manworthy Road, apparently he found this page and decided to tell me what had happened to the house. The house has been extensively remodelled and is now home to eight residents.
23 Manworthy Road - taken from Google Maps in September 2025
The developer had a mural painted on the outside wall by Bristol artist Zase
All the above photos came from the Strawberry Property Limited and Spareroom site.
The interior looks very nice, high-end and posh, but I think I prefer the odd quirks the house had when I lived there.
Anyway, in 1996, when I owned the house, I decided it needed major internal redecoration and the following pages document some of the work I did.