When the bells don't chime

Mono Monday: Every picture tells a story

"Well whatcha gonna do
When the bells don't chime
There's nothin' you can do
To make em ring


Whatcha gonna do
When you ain't mine
You'll find out
That you had everything


When the bell's don't chime
When they don't even ring
Your heart feels broken
You can't even sing


Whatcha gonna do
When the bells don't chime
You're gonna wish
You still had me


Well whatcha gonna do
When the bells don't chime
You'll slip into a night
That never ends"

Brian Setzer ~ When the bells don't chime


(If you like Rockabilly guitar, Brian's solo is  at 1:30 on the link)


This pub, in what is nowadays an inner city residential estate, is just a few hundred yards from Bristol's Temple Meads, and very much a remnant of Bristol's changing times.  If you walk around the area now, you will see several large ugly multi story Council owned blocks of flats, erected in the 60's I would guess. At the edges is an estate of more recent housing on a more human scale delivered in the last 30 years. Again, quite architecturally unappealing I am afraid, particularly when seen on a wet day such as today.

You could as a result think that this pub was, as an estate pub, just another a victim of changing patterns of social interaction.

But there is much more to this picture than meets the eye.  

The name of the area, now largely forgotten, was Cathay - as recorded in the register of the nearby Parish Church: St Mary Redcliffe.  Cathay was the old word for China, and this area was Bristol's little China, because, back in the 16th century some Chinese traders were based here, not being allowed to trade inside the city walls themselves.  

Despite the present day use, Cathay was historically not much of a residential area at all; it was very much  industrial.  The area was home to a large number of glass and chemical works  and the pub, needless to say, provided refreshment to the local workers over many years.  

1839 an inquest was held into the tragic death of five-year-old Jane Franklyn in the Bell.  It seems that Jane’s father and brother made some rockets, which they intended to let off on Guy Fawkes Night.  They left them on the hob in the parlour of their house to dry.  Unfortunately as Jane's mother was cooking some meat, she stirred the fire to produce more heat and a spark ignited the rockets, with predictable results for all present, although it was only young Jame that died.

A very large glass kiln came to dominate the area.  But by the early 1970s the area was ripe for redevelopment and Ladbrokes built a hotel called the Dragonara on the site; back in those days the hotel's kiln restaurant was the place to be seen.  

The Bell finally closed in early 2008. The then owners Enterprise Inns placed a covenant on the building preventing its use as a public house. It has been left derelict ever since.