IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Jacob Street, BRISTOL, BS2 0BD

The old Trinity Hospital almshouses back wall has some incongruous features.

Some interesting features of the old Trinity Hospital almshouses. The original almshouses were built by a city merchant, sheriff and mayor of Bristol, John Barstaple, in about 1402. The buildings were rebuilt many times, especially between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, and are now private flats.

Looking along Old Market Street near the junction with Bond Street South.

View along cobbled street towards the bend which leads to Old Market Street, and buildings of Midland Road in background.

The area is historically just outside the old town of Bristol and where markets were held, suitably outside the jurisdiction. Consequently, affairs could get a little out of hand on occasions. Now the place is very much part of Bristol's heartland but the faint air of revelry and misrule still lingers. Fortunes have come and gone, and perhaps will return again one day. Meanwhile, the present face is one of colourful transience.

Old Market Street in the centre of Bristol.

The historic old Drill Hall in central Bristol was built around a century ago for 4th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment. It served both First and Second World Wars before being sold off by the military. However, its use from then on was somewhat piecemeal and lay derelict for many years before being converted into residential flats.

The old drill hall in Old Market was once a sugar refinery, owned initially by the Bristol Sugar Refining Company and, later, the Bristol & West Sugar Refinery. Once war broke out the buildings were purchased by Sir Henry Wills (of the local tobacco family) for reuse as an alternative venue. Around this time the University of Bristol in Park Street was being constructed and some groups were turfed out of their old rooms. To accommodate the move, land was exchanged so that the Gloucestershire Territorial Force Association could move from Queens Road in Clifton to the Drill Hall. The new drill hall was designed as the headquarters of the 4th Battalion, The Gloucestershire Regiment (the 'Glosters'), who had relocated from the Queen's Road drill hall in June 1915. Interestingly the barracks were given up by the 4th Battalion in 1940 and black American soldiers were sent here. At a time when racial segregation was the norm back home, the black soldiers found life in war-time Bristol quite a shock. However, there were disturbances in town when white G.I.s met them. Having seen the course of two world wars, the site was left by the military in 1945 and became derelict for some time. The Post Office used it as a sorting office for a short time but in the early 2000s the buildings were converted into residential use.

Many a soldier would have marched through this entrance, originally for the 4th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment. Both World Wars are part of this building's history. Before this place was a sugar refinery and now is residential.