Features / Hamilton House
In photos: artists leave Hamilton House
Hamilton House owners Connolly & Callaghan are not calling what happened on Friday an eviction, but many of the artists leaving their studios are calling it just that.
Photographer Colin Moody spent the day documenting their final hours in Block C:
The last moments of his business
An artist clearing their space as another tenant’s boy throws his ball at me
The last moments in Block C
An artist’s chair
Trees. Everything else is gone.
A view through the Save Hamilton House stencil
An empty house in an empty space
View of the remaining A and B blocks
A Connolly & Callaghan spokesperson said: “Connolly & Callaghan are currently involved in negotiations with Coexist to secure a 10-year lease for Block A on Stokes Croft and the adjoining Block B, so that social enterprise at Hamilton House can be secured for the next decade and Coexist can continue in its work for the diverse local community.
is needed now More than ever
“The necessary capital for this will be financed by converting part of Block C on City Road into much-needed homes for rent at prices affordable to ordinary people, primarily for those working in Hamilton House. These will not be luxury flats, and are not being built to ‘gentrify’ the area.
“The majority of licensees from Block C who have asked to be accommodated within Hamilton House have been found space in Blocks A or B, and have been able to remain within the Hamilton House community.”
A statement on the Save Hamilton House Facebook page said: “It seems they (C&C) have once again applied for Permitted Development (PD) which means no one can object. PD gives them no obligation to actually build social or affordable housing. So despite their words what do they have in mind? What’s their version of ‘affordable’ housing? Why try and get planning through PD?
“Even though we cannot object, we can leave comments. So we at #SaveHamiltonHouse ask you all to leave comments objecting to their plans.”
The planning application can be found here on the city council website.
Also writing on Facebook, Delia Anne Whitbread said: “As the only artist left in C block with C&C my new landlords, I have to say that if they are expecting the council to be impressed that they have evicted creatives from their workspaces to try to make the same application for planning as before they might be sadly disappointed.
“There will be a reckoning I am sure. I am confident that there might be enough people on the council with a sense of fair play to see through this stupid and self-defeating move! Unless of course they have ‘friends and influence’ among the councillors.
“My time on the ground floor will be limited – I might have a year, if I am lucky, should the flat development go ahead. However, C&C seem incapable of understanding that by tearing the inner heart out Hamilton House they are actually destroying the goose that laid the golden eggs… No good will come of it and eventually the neighbourhood will lose value and they will never make the money that they hoped. They should have sold it to us, and one day they may have no other option. Fingers crossed!”
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