Bristol, St Peter’s Church, The SS Great Britain, Bristol Cathedral, and Cabot Tower

Continued from Part 1…

After a poor night’s sleep, being woken up by some drunk lads trying to get in to our room at 2am, we had some breakfast and planned our day. The weather forecast was dismal, with heavy rain across the region all day. Not to be perturbed, we put on our coats, and headed out the door.

Less than 10 minutes walk from the hotel was Castle Park, where St Peter’s Church sits. The 12th century church is a ruin, bombed during WWII as a part of the “Bristol Blitz”. Despite only being a shell, it was still a lovely looking church, and was apparently the site of Bristol’s first church.

We couldn’t stick around long since we had a boat to catch! We walked down to a small pier and arrived just in time to hop on the small passenger ferry that’d take us along the harbour.

The picture shows the rain hitting the water. We were the only two on the boat for some of the journey, and got the best seats in the middle under the cover (away from the rain). The boat ride took about 30 minutes in total, by the end of which Helen was looking and feeling a little green. At least we were seated and relatively dry on the boat, and we got to see a lot of sights from the harbour.

One of the pictures below shows St Peter’s Church in the distance, and another shows a close-up of “The Matthew of Bristol”, a full-sized replica of a sailing ship that discovered Newfoundland back in 1497, this was unfortunately closed today, so we weren’t able to take a closer look when we walked past it later on.

Eventually, we arrived at the SS Great Britain, and we were glad to be back on land, though it was far from dry! Even though we’d only been out for an hour or so at this point, we were both very soggy. The first part to explore was the drydock underneath the ship, you could walk all the way around the keel and touch the underbelly of the ship herself.

The drydock was built back in 1839, and is the original drydock that the SS Great Britain was constructed in back in the mid-19th century. We were walking on the original cobblestones underneath the ship, just like the builders would’ve been doing nearly 200 years ago.

The SS Great Britain was the first ship to use a screw propeller to cross the Atlantic, and the rudder was the first of it’s type as well, both of these are in use today. Some parts of the keel were very rust-damaged, and you could see lots of tiny holes all over.

One of the original iron anchors from the ship was also on display down here, the middle of which had been bent slightly during a severe storm over a century ago.

From here, we went back outside and across to the museum, which was full of hundreds of little trinkets and original pieces of the ship, as well as one of the original masts and a lifting propeller.

Then it was back outside and on to the deck of the ship. There were barely any people up on deck, since it was raining so much, everyone pretty much ran from the museum area to the stairs and went below deck as fast as they could, so this gave me plenty of time to take some nice pictures (and get nice and wet in the process).

After pretending to be Captain for a while, I went below deck to explore some more, I started in the first class section towards the rear of the ship while Helen started in the steerage accommodation. I thought that was quite fitting! There was a lady playing the piano in the first class “promenade saloon” which was nice, the ship’s surgery was also in one of these rooms in the first class section too. Lots of the rooms were very narrow and difficult to take pictures of, and the accommodation very cramped, I thought if this is first class, I’d like to see how they cram more beds in to steerage class!

Next stop was the upper part of the engine room, where the primary gear wheel was spinning, next to which were a couple of levers and a funnel, how the captain up-top would communicate with the engineer below. I wasn’t expecting to see such a big drivewheel right in the middle of the ship like this, it took up so much space!

Here there were also some second-class rooms, along with a butchery.

Just around the corner were the galley and a small bakery that smelt very strongly of bread. That might sound odd, but it’s all plastic fake bread, so I wasn’t expecting the smell. The rest of the ship just smelt of old metal. See if you can spot the rat in the kitchen!

Now I was at the front of the ship, it was time to see the steerage class, and yes, they did manage to cram in even more bunks!

The mess area and dining area were also very different to the other end of the ship, very cramped.

Downstairs on to the lower deck, we could see the keel down here, it was covered in small rust-damage holes that the light shone through.

Then it was back to the front of the ship to see the first class dining saloon (the mid-ship saloon was closed for a wedding party).

Back outside and in to the rain once more, again barely any people walking around outside, so I was free to circle the ship and take some nice pictures. At this point Helen decided to go and sit in the cafe to get out of the weather and stay warm.

Some of the decorations around the ship were really detailed and impressive too.

Out of the rain and back in to another museum, on the other side of the ship was the Brunel museum, that had tonnes of information about Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer mastermind behind the SS Great Britain. The museum was odd, it had a 2-story bust of the man himself, it reminded me a little of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! Very eccentric decor!

I spent about 20 minutes in here reading about Brunel’s mind (he was a very smart, but obsessive man), then met up with Helen in the cafe for a few minutes before we headed to our next stop.

We ducked in to a Pitcher and Piano bar on the harbour front for 15 minutes to get some respite from the rain, by this point we were starting to get fed up with the weather, both of us soaked through. We thought we’d go for an indoor activity and check out the Bristol Aquarium, but there was an hour-long queue, so we didn’t stick around. By the time we got to the cathedral, we were both utterly drenched. Helen decided to head back to the hotel to have a shower while I stayed out a little longer to get some more pictures.

Bristol Cathedral was lovely, not especially massive, but very well kept, and seemed to be more active than other cathedrals I’ve visited.

While I was there, a choir was practising in one of the chapels, and in the main room a man was playing the organ. I’ve never been in a cathedral when the organ’s been played before, the sound really carries through everywhere.

The cathedral also had a small garden in the back that had a few graves in it. I’ve not seen a graveyard/garden mix before, so this was strange, but nice to see still.

Out in front of the cathedral is a statue of Raja Rammohan Roy, often named the “father of modern India”, a man known for founding the Hindu reform movement, and fighting for women’s rights.

After the cathedral, I decided to walk up Brandon Hill to Cabot Tower, a decision I’d soon come to regret! As I climbed the hill, the rain got worse, and by the time I reached the tower, I was exhausted and felt like I’d fallen in the River Avon! The park around Brandon Hill looks like it would’ve been beautiful in good weather, but in this weather, with water pouring down the paths, it wasn’t particularly pleasant. The views from the top of Cabot Tower were lovely though!

After climbing back down the tower, I decided to head back to the hotel and join Helen. When I got there at around 2:30pm, I had to jump straight in the shower then put on a fresh set of clothes. Both of us feeling a little miserable due to the weather, we decided to just rest in the hotel for the remainder of the day. We had a small lunch at the Beefeater downstairs, and we’ll be going back there in an hour or so for dinner (we can’t leave the building, all our going-out clothes are sodden!).

So we didn’t get as much out of the day today as we’d have liked due to the rotten weather, but still managed a fair amount. Tomorrow we’ll head home soon after breakfast, pick the cats up from the cattery, and enjoy the remainder of the Bank Holiday at home.