Gone West

A quick work visit to Bristol gave the chance to have a short wander around Bristol

No prizes for guessing the London stations here

The train to Bristol split into two five car units, this was still in Lockdown 1 and due to work I was permitted to travel, in the front five there were four people in total. No ticket guards/food and even at Reading the numbers only just crept into double figures.

Work went well in what was now an empty four story building with just me and property services onsite so it was time to take a stroll and see what an empty Bristol had to offer. There are many Banksy contributions to choose from and it wasnt long before I found one

I then ventured on to the steepest road in England which ironically was the target for another Bansky two weeks later. This road is unreal with cars being chained to the railings in the winter to prevents them slipping downwards.

Back into the City and a time check showed a clock with three hands.

The old market building’s clock, installed originally in 1822, has two minute hands, just over 10 minutes apart, in order to show both Greenwich Mean Time and Bristol local time.

This dual time-keeping became necessary with the proliferation of railways. Trains started to conform schedules nationwide, and England had to adopt a standardized railway time, something that had never been attempted before.

Many resisted Greenwich Mean Time, preferring to hold onto the hour their town had all agreed upon for centuries. The city of Bristol only officially adopted the standard time on 14 September 1852, five years after it was established. For those five years, when it was noon in Bristol, it was 12:10 p.m. by the railway clock. Accordingly, the two hands on the Bristol Exchange clock displayed times exactly 10 minutes apart. To this day, the clock has the GMT minute hand in red and the local one in black.