I did a couple of batches of abandoned places photos; so this might seem a bit disjointed (rather than me doing several separate posts I’ll break it up within this one…
This is a shot of the statue stood in, what was presumably the car park for a restaurant (I believe) underneath and next to what was the Waldorf school (The Waldorf school appears to have been a Steiner School; the Bristol Steiner School has moved up to Cotham… incidentally). This whole area’s been abandoned since before I came to Bristol – but this area is an example of it being astounding how an huge object can be abandoned and you can completely fail to see it….
Starting with the smaller of the clump of objects; the school. I’m not sure, I’m afraid, how long this school has been abandoned. A few years, certainly.
Looking along and up at the school buildings; you can see the bizzare stuck-together nature of the building with mulitple different generations of builders tacking bits on here and there.
In front of the school buildings seems to have become a dumping ground; it’s bizzare, you’re less than a minute’s walk away from posh Bristol, and there’s this fly tipping; the yellow box in the foreground is a hospital sharps bin – which dissuaded me from going any further into the mire.
And that’s the back of one of the big office buildings overlooking the school…
Anyway, the building is next to a car-park; or more accurately, the car-park’s been squeezed in next to it.
There’s a bizzare space between them, the car-park starting on a much lower level and working it’s way up to high above; with an oddly shaped unusable gap between it and the surrounding buildings. Which turns out to be quite good, because once on the top-deck, you can see over into the school yard playground.
Again, you can see the completely chopped about structure which made up the school buildings.
And in that last one you can see the next building on the itinerary; Bristol’s Pro-Cathedral
Started in 1834, abandoned, restarted in 1846 and opened (or whatever it is you do with Churches!) in 1848, the Pro-Cathedral of the Apostles in Bristol was designed by H.E.Goodridge and revised by Charles Hansom (who added important things like: windows, a roof they could afford to build). It was never completely finished, but served Clifon’s Roman Catholic Community until the 70’s, when the new Cathedral in Pembroke Road opened. After which it was used variously as a store and by the adjoining Waldorf School.
Having lived in Bristol (granted not this bit) for 4 years I was completely unaware of it’s existance, hidden as it is by car-parks and office buildings. Signs outside profess that the building is to be converted into mixed urban space (whatever that is); but at the moment it’s as it has been since use stopped; abandoned and rotting.
At the end of the pro-cathedral is what was the pastor’s (I’m not 100% on R.C. terminology) house; this is a barely-standing shell, which we’ll come to in a moment. But first the Pro-Cathedral.
The Pro-Cathedral really deserves a whole role of film (or more) to itself, it’s covered in fine details; weathered by Bristol’s notorious car polution, and decades of complete neglect. Scrabbling about a bit on the outside wall and holding my camera, flash and all, through a broken window got me some shots of the inside of the hall, most of them very blurry:
I have a thing about pianos; I love them. Lots. I hate seeing a piano, even just a simple plain upright, left to rot like this.
Sadly, at that point I ran out of film! But that was because I’d spent most of my feeble film alotment on the pastor’s house, which as I mentioned before is much more neglected than the rest of the pro-cathedral (or suffering more from the neglect, can something be more neglected?).
You can see it then, peering out from behind the trees. It doesn’t look too bad, really. For 30+ years of standing empty. But when you look closer…
And through other windows you can see the fallen roof / floor joists and the complete absence of interior…
And wandering round to the other side of the building, the extent of the damage is hidden by it’s resiliant shell:
Until you look inside…
I believe that the Pro-Cathedral is listed / planned to be saved, but the pastor’s house is going to be demolished (sadly, because although it’d be a huge amount of work (and might not be possible, actually)) it would be a beautiful place.
Finally, to round off, I popped by Bristol North Baths (and more pictures here) which has now closed and is being slowly destroyed by the council. No access, so I’m afraid these are shots through windows, excuse the blurryness…
Information about the Pro-Cathedral from this page; the information about the Waldorf school came from this page.
