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Ashton Court Estate: 850 acres of woods, meadows, open grassland, deer parks and horse and bike riding trails not 2 miles from Bristol city centre. Just head west over the Suspension Bridge or walk up through Southville and past UWE Bower Ashton campus and you’ll be surrounded by a wide and seemingly infinite estate that has been keeping Bristolians sane for years. The estate is focused around Ashton Court Mansion, a super posh house that was taken over by Bristol Council in the 1950s and is now rented out for business conferences, parties and weddings, aside from just looking damn regal all year round.
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As 2010 swings into action, Bristol’s independent art scene starts the new decade in rude health. Away from establishments like the Arnolfini and Spike Island, there has been a marked growth in the kind of community work previously only found at places like the Trinity Centre. Although it’s merely the tip of the iceberg where the entire city is concerned, these days a walk down Stokes Croft is a sensory blur of colour and texture. Between the great waves of Hillgrove Street and the murals that skirt the derelict front of Westmoreland House, you find Turbo Island’s bold font, a tiny medieval Apothecary and countless tiny oddities that reveal themselves only with careful inspection.

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Canon’s Marsh is one square kilometre of new development in central Bristol: is it an area struggling businesses and ill fated tourist attractions, or the heart of Bristol’s much planned new café culture? The summer of 2010 will decide its fate.
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The Llandoger Trow is one of the most famous pubs in Bristol. The name comes from Llandogo, a coastal town in Wales, and from a trow, a flat bottomed barge, typical of the sort that used to moor up on the Welshback. Situated on the cobbled section of King Street, the pub is a striking building with black beamed gables and its interior has hardly changed since it came into being in 1664. The Llandoger Trow oozes history but it is particularly renowned for its literary connections…

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You’d be surprised at the scale of Bristol’s fame. Over the last couple of decades, many of its streets, parks and monuments have been immortalised in popular TV programmes and films, from old classics like Only Fools And Horses to modern hits like Skins. The locations within Bristol have all been central to the shows and their storylines and while they’re not going to change anyone’s lives, it does make living here a tiny bit more exciting!
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St Mary Redcliffe
Height: 292ft
Number of Floors: 1
Built: 1100s
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I love Southville: I live here, work here and manage to spend a rather ludicrous amount of time loafing about here. When I first moved to Bristol, penniless and Cornish, I took a room in a beautiful, ramshackle house just off North Street and I’ve stayed round here ever since. I admit that I am completely bias but in sharing a few facts, tales and highlights of The ‘Ville, I hope to go someway in drawing you into my love affair.
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