In some of the older commercial buildings in the city there are cellars, and the quickest access to these cellars was from the roadside via doors that opened directly onto the pavement. Perhaps we are most familiar with these cellar doors outside pubs, where the barrels of beer are still delivered through them.
This is just a little selection of these doors, and another little door thrown in for good measure… a little extra if you like.
Here we go:
Cellar doors with the addition of a metal strip and a tag by tagger Pi who seems to have tagged every street in Bristol, November 2019
This first door is the same one as the feature image, photographed a few months afterwards. Spot the difference?
When old meets new cellar doors, Bristol, December 2019No getting away from ‘street furniture’. Cellar doors nicely keyed-in with the stone pavement, Bristol, December 2019Cellar doors including pavement doors for deliveries, Bristol, December 2019Heavy-duty cellar doors, Bristol, July 2019Old wooden and less old metal cellar doors, Bristol, December 2019Old and probably no longer used cellar doors, Bristol, December 2019
And finally a little bonus door, with the emphasis on little.
Small door to under stairs store, Bristol, December 2019
So my friendly doorsters, that’s it for another week. Have a great weekend whatever you get up to.
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors and you ought to take a look at the Norm 2.0 blog – the originator of Thursday Doors where there are links to yet more doors in the comments section at the end.
A gallery of extraordinary characters and writing from Bristol artist DNT.
All photographs by Scooj
DNT, Montpelier Park, Bristol, May 2024DNT, Tymb and Mr Klue, Gloucester Road, Bristol, December 2022DNT, M32 roundabout, Bristol, October 2022DNT, Nine Tree Hill, Bristol, April 2021Mr Klue and DNT, Turbo Island, Bristol, February 2020Kid Crayon and DNT?, Stokes Croft, Bristol, May 2017DNT, The Carriageworks, Bristol, October 2016DNT, Turbo Island, Bristol, January 2020DNT, Richmond Road, Bristol, February 2020DNT, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2020DNT, Moon Street, Bristol, January 2020DNT, Grosvenor Road, Bristol, July 2019DNT, Moon Street, Bristol, July 2019DNT, Moon Street, Bristol, March 2019DNT, Thomas Street, Bristol, June 2019DNT, Moon Street, Bristol, May 2019DNT, Moon Street, Bristol, April 2019DNT, Moon Street, Bristol, April 2019DNT, Moon Street, Bristol, April 2019Hazard and DNT, Stokes Croft, Bristol, March 2019DNT, Moon Street, Bristol, February 2019DNT, Stokes Croft, Bristol, December 2015DNT, Stokes Croft, Bristol, December 2015DNT, Thomas Street, Bristol, February 2018DNT, The Bearpit, Bristol, September 2018DNT, The Bearpit, Bristol, September 2018DNT, Stokes Croft, Bristol, April 2016DNT, Nelson Street, Bristol, November 2017DNT, Hepburn Road, Bristol, August 2017DNT, Hepburn Road, Bristol, April 2016Object000 and DNT, Stokes Croft, Bristol, March 2017DNT, Akarat and Sheva, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016DNT, The Bearpit, Bristol, January 2016DNT, Moon Street, Bristol, January 2016DNT and Akarat, Nine Tree Hill, Bristol, August 2016DNT, Stokes Croft, Bristol, June 2016DNT, Mr Klue, Akarat, Hepburn Road, Bristol, January 2016DNT, Jamaica Street, Bristol, January 2016DNT, Jamaica Street, Bristol, January 2016DNT, Moon Street, Bristol, December 2015
Emily Joy Rich is a Bristol-based graphic designer and lettering artist. For anyone interested in letters and typeface art, I strongly recommend a quick squiz at her Instagram feed @emilyjoyrich – you will be in for a treat.
Emily Joy Rich, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
This Upfest 2018 piece is a good example of her typeface skills and she has combined them with an uplifting design and some cloudy kind of things. All that was really needed to set this piece off perfectly was a nice sunny day, but these were in short supply during the 2018 festival.
Another look back to Upfest 2018 with this magnificent mural by The London Police. I know little about The London Police and have only seen their work on social media, but is appears that they have been an outfit since 2002, and comprise two central artists with othhers joining and leaving the collective over time. Ther is more about them in their Biography on their website.
The London Police, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
I take my hat off to them for tackling this wall, because in my view, this is one of the trickiest walls and most annoying to photograph at Upfest. The best shots are from the roof opposite or from a drone, and guess what, I don’t have one of those.
The London Police, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
The design is reasonably simple and clean which makes it easy to look at and enjoy. It is consistent with their work over many years and I believe the character is called LADS who forms the central part of all of their work. A fine piece.
Well I don’t know about you, but I am getting rather excited about the return of Upfest which will be running in Bristol from 29 to 31 May, although some of the premium walls will be painted during the week before the festival, to make sure they are completed when the main pulse of visitors come.
Sake One, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
So (I hate anyone who begins sentences with so) just to whet your appetite I thought I’d take a little look back at Upfest 2018 and some pieces I haven’t yet got round to posting, starting with this beauty from Sake One. In the WIP photograph the artist was taking a break with his (I assume) family, which was lovely to see. Quite a lot of artists had their families and children buzzing around which made the whole thing feel a bit more inclusive.
Sake One, Upfest, Bristol, September 2018
I didn’t get to see the completed piece until some while after the festival, mainly because I think he finished it after I had left. Alas, this is another one of those spots that seems to have a car permanently parked in front of it, so you’ll just have to make do with these pictures. A fabulous piece from a fabulous artist.
I was on a mission to buy a couple of birthday presents a week or two back, and was running out of options (and time) so I took a stroll up Gloucester Road to see what I could find, as my usual ‘sure thing’ the Guild on Park Street had somewhat let me down. One of the shops I visited a couple of times was CoLAB, a shop that sells art from local artists. This particular shop also has strong links with the street art scene and stocks a range of books published by Tangent on the subject.
On my second trip into the shop, which sealed the deal on a rather nice print of the Carriageworks (with the Iconic Sweet Toof and Rawdy crocodile), I noticed this little alcove that looked a little bit like an ex-changing room (not an exchanging room, that might be something completely diffierent). Hurrah, the unmistakable work of Andy Council.
Andy Council, Gloucester Road CoLAB, Bristol, February
I don’t usually post indoor art in Natural Adventures, but just occassionally…
I suspect, looking at the wear and tear on this piece it might have been done some time ago. In true Andy Council style it features a bunch of dinosaurs that are constructed out of small houses and includes the Clifton Suspension Bridge, just for good measure. His work is inextricably linked with his home city and his identity can be found all over the place. A great find in a great shop that I will visit more frequently I’m sure.
This is a really nice piece by an artist I call Corupt (because that is what he most commonly writes, although he also writes Stik) unusually he has written BS3 in this piece which is a postcode reference to the Southville and Bedminster area of Bristol (south of the river). It is unusual for an artist to paint a postcode outside the area of that postcode.
Corupt, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2020
The piece is beautifully painted, with a fine spotty fill and nice 3D shading on the letters. My guess is that Corupt may have been a bit pissed off that his background was about six inches shy on the right hand side, it would certainly annoy me. It matters little to the overall quality of the piece.
It is a funny thing, but I have always been quite nonchalant about Banksy. I love his art, I love it that he comes from Bristol but I tend to stand up for all the other artists whose work is extraordinary and who are not Banksy. However, even I got caught up in the frenzy of excitement that surrounded his visit to Bristol last Wednesday night/Thursday morning.
Banksy, Marsh Lane, Bristol, February 2020
It is not often the artist comes back to his home city, so it always feels rather special when he does. The other thing about his work is that you have to get there quick to see it, because there are some crazy people who try to vandalise his stuff, particularly in Bristol – who knows why. And guess what, since I wrote the last sentence two days ago, an idiot has indeed vandalised the piece with some rather nasty message over the stencil girl.
Banksy, Marsh Lane, Bristol, February 2020
These pictures are a little bit low-res, I have obviously kept the high res versions in my archive, to avoid copyright theft – something I rarely do. So sorry about the quality. The piece itself features a girl in a hoodie firing a catapult of beautiful red flowers. Is this a love message to Bristol?
Banksy, Marsh Lane, Bristol, February 2020
The location of the piece is significant, because it is just around the corner that Banksy learned to spray paint under the watchful eye of John Nation, a youth club worker at Barton Hill youth club. John is the godfather of Bristol street art, and what he doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing about.
Banksy, Marsh Lane, Bristol, February 2020
There was a constant stream of people gathering at the wall when I made it down there on Friday, and it was great to witness their sense of awe that something special had happened here and that they were able to share in it. I couldn’t resist photographing this gentleman with his motorbike, he said the selfie was for his motor club which I thought was very sweet.
Banksy, Marsh Lane, Bristol, February 2020
You can get a sense of the flow of people from the final picture. The nice fellow in the yellow check shirt had come over from Swansea just to see this wall. I bet they are all glad that they did when they did knowing that it has now been vandalised.
A special day for a hunter and a special day for Bristol.
Natural adventures 