Art / News
Mind your p’s and q’s on the route of Bristol’s old town wall
Be careful you don’t come a cropper while walking along the newly reopened route of Bristol’s former town wall.
Despite the defensive role of the wall made unimportant after a new channel for the River Frome was constructed in the 13th century, much of the wall itself remained.
Bristol then developed outside the original walls, gradually absorbing the wall itself with the only section of the original wall now remaining visible at St John on the Wall church – once one of 11 churches within the walled town, some built on the wall and incorporating town gates.
is needed now More than ever
Much of the rebuilding in what is now known as the Old City respected the line of the wall and the lanes that run inside it, so the location of the walls can still be traced.
And that is how we get to the latest chapter of our story, with one section just inside the line of the old wall, Tower Lane, now reopened after being closed for several years and containing some new secrets.
The four-star Clayton Hotel is due to open in April with its main entrance being the facade of the former Everards printworks on Broad Street.
It is this printing heritage that has been brought back to life, with Nick Hand of the Letterpress Collective and Department of Small Works incorporating well-known phrases that come from printing within the newly laid paving stones of Tower Lane.
Tower Lane still follows the line of Bristol’s old town wall – photo: Martin Booth
Hand’s piece is called Mind Your P’s and Q’s, with other phrases contained along Tower Lane being ‘hot off the press’, ‘ out of sorts’, ‘a dab hand’, ‘stereotype’, ‘come a cropper’ and ‘upper case and lower case’.
The etymology of ‘mind your p’s and q’s’ comes from the days when type was set by hand and printers could easily mistake lowercase p’s for q’s, hence the caution to be careful to not make that error.
The idiom ‘a dab hand’ is believed to come from a printer’s tool known as a dab – photo: Martin Booth
Bloom by Hazard One has been painted the Little John Street underpass, which was once a gate in the town wall, with Carlo Hornilla, also known as KaaroKaaro, due to paint four pillars on Tower Lane.
Clayton Hotel general manager, Alison Mansfield, said that she is “delighted to have had brilliant local artists put their stamp on this area”.
Take a walk around the hidden corners of the Old City with Martin Booth and Yuup: www.yuup.co/experiences/explore-bristol-s-quirkiest-corners
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read more: Renowned Bristol artist creates new murals in medieval entrance to Old City
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