Hallowed Ground

There are ghosts in this place. I had no idea I'd start seeing them at all, let alone so vividly.

So, this was the view from my room in a Clifton backstreet. In April 2023 I'd booked a holiday in Bristol, the city of my birth, in an almost accidental manner without really thinking all that much. And in between booking the holiday and before I'd even got on the train down, the ghosts were starting to gather. The smell - that unique smell of home only found in Bristol - that greeted me at at Temple Meads filled my nostrils all the way on the long walk up the hill. With each and every few yards another sight - of St. Peter's in Castle Park, the nails on Corn Street and then that long look up Park Street - brought the those ghosts ever clearer into view. It has taken a year to get to writing this, and for reasons.

The beginning began long before the start. And the end - well is the story I'm about to tell really have one? Experience tells us that memory lane can be a dangerous path, full of traps that can never be filled, that can trip the fragile process of recollection and send us stumbling - arse over tit - until we wished we'd never started, and gone on holiday elsewhere.

Back in the 80s (or to Generation Z "the late 1900s" - God that makes me feel old) my dad attended a 'specialist' college. A private vocational training centre in an old manor. There was a big family environment about it so we (my brother and I) were often there as well. To the side of the main building is a chapel and behind that a large bank of trees. I'd kicked a ball or something back there and went into the trees to get it. Expecting perhaps some trees, then a gap, then a wall, I instead found myself standing in a woodland - in front of me was a large hollow with old steps running down it. The steps were lined with those stone urn things you get in stately home gardens. I went down, and then back up the other side of the gully, looking through a fence at where some old people's homes were. So back down the gully and along the remains of another urn-lined path - at the end of which was a large, walled, and completely overgrown garden. It was like The Amazing Mr. Blunden down there.

The garden was one of those ones that had once been laid out in a grid pattern with paths between but now it was a repeating pattern of brambles. To the side, a long ruined building - some sort of orangery - and at the far end a huge set of metal gates, padlocked and set solid with rust, and covered on the other side with large sheets of wood to block it all off. Now I knew the college had 2 gates - front and side, but didn't know about this. Under a small gap in the rotten woodwork I could see a road and scrambled underneath. Nothing particularly magical beyond: houses, some blocks of flats, tennis courts. I went on further, through the flats which went on and on, glimpsing the sight of what seemed like a large castle atop a long grassy slope. I've got a fairly good sense of direction and found my way back. Dad hadn't noticed my absence. Sometimes, later, when the weather was good I'd slide off and scramble back down to mooch around more. The old orangery ruins, full of rusting equipment, was a favourite, as was going back under the gate and among the flats. More than once I'd lurk on a wall and talked to some old kids in the flats playing tennis.

Eventually I found a fencing erected blocking my way through the trees behind the chapel. I'd asked people about my discovery first time and no-one really knew about it, but a some time later a secretary showed me black and white photos of college events in the orangery (she was in them). So talking about memory - the college had forgotten of a chunk of the estate.  The fence was up as they'd since had meeting on what to do and decided to sell it. Should have kept my mouth shut, really. Especially as its not there any more. A year and a half into university I was walking along the side road to the college and suddenly thought.

"Where's the back gate?"

I looked back and forth, seeing only houses, and beyond a row of trees and the college roof further along. Then I looked around, and at the tennis courts and realized what was behind dad's old college.

And zooming out to see the flats and tennis courts.....

Now, if you stand in the middle of Hiatt-Baker and look up the slope, you will see what appears to be a castle on the hill. The long steps between the two halves of Badock - I remember them. Sorry about calling Churchill Hall an OAP home. I still think it looks like one.