Not A BRHG Event
Bread or Batons? The Old Market 'Riots' of February 1932 Since the 'Wall Street Crash' of 1929 joblessness in Bristol had risen to unprecedented levels; by February 1932 the situation was critical with whole districts blighted by the effects of mass unemployment. Jobless Bristolians rallied round the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement (NUWM), the main organisation opposing mass unemployment and Government 'means test'. The NUWM responded to the proposed austerity measures by organising a […]
Vice & Virtue
Vice & Virtue talks between July-Nov A series of free talks at Trinity. (Note, these events are not organised by BRHG) For more information about the talks or the project contact Edson on story@3ca.org.uk or Vice & Virtue is aproject funded by Heritage Lottery Fund, Quartet Community Foundation and the Old Market Community Association. Vice & Virtue: Discovering the History of Old Market 1900-2005 - invites you to a series of talks by local and national experts on the many aspects of […]
Steve Hunt will launch his book about Street Farm, published by Tangent Books in April 2014 Street Farm were an anarchist collective that worked to green the counterculture during the 1970s. Peter Crump, Bruce Haggart, Graham Caine and their friends put together Street Farmer, an underground paper that, alongside mutating tower blocks, cosmic tractors and sprouting one-way signs, propagated ideas for the radical transformation of urban living which they called ‘revolutionary urbanism’. Taking […]
The Fair Fight is a pulsating historical novel set within the world of female pugilists and their patrons in late eighteenth-century Bristol. It is an unputdownable story which takes you from a filthy brothel to the finest houses in the town, from the world of street fighters to the world of champions. Alive with the smells and sounds of the streets, The Fair Fight is a major debut. Anna Freeman a lecturer in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University as well as a multiple slam-winning performance […]
Coming soon: £12 • 262 pages • 215mm x 140mm Isbn: 978-1-906477-44-8 • Available April 18, 2014 Distributor: Central Books • 0208 986 4854 • www.centralbooks.com Sales: Richard Jones • 0117 972 0645 • richard@tangentbooks.co.uk Stephen E Hunt has produced the definitive account of Street Farm (Graham Caine, Peter Crump and Bruce Haggart), a London-based collective of anarchist architects working in the early 1970s. The three friends put together Street Farmer, an underground paper that, […]
Bristol Radical Film Festival 2014 starts tonight with Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Enemies of the People at The Cube. The full programme for 2014 can be found on their website.
This is a map of the Parish of Bitton from 1842. Cock Road can be see just to the right of Hanham. Note that the original is marked 1842 however, the map shows the Midland Branch Line (now the Bristol-Bath cycle track) which was not opened until 1869. See the Avon Valley Railway website for more details. A full version of The History of The Parish of Bitton in the County of Glousceter. by Rev. H. T. Ellacombe can be found on Archive.org.
This map from 1750 is of the 'Liberties' around Kingswood and the parish of Bitton. The dotted line running out through Warmly is the London Road (now the A420). The Cock Road, not marked, is just above where “Gee Moor” is written in “Mr Bond’s Liberty”. The houses are labelled with many of the family names that are associated with the Cock Road Gang. It contains many of the family names which are associated with the Cock Road Gang such as (with various spellings) Britton, Wilmot, Ilses, Bryant, […]
Home to the notorious Kingswood Miners and infamous Cock Road Gang this is what Kingswood, North of Bristol, looked like in 1610. 'London Waye' is now the A420 and Bath Waye is the A431. A full version of The History of The Parish of Bitton in the County of Glousceter. by Rev. H. T. Ellacombe can be found on Archive.org.
Cock Road was, in the 18th Century, a tiny hamlet on the outskirts of Bristol, within the lawless Kingswood Forest. Though a small area, the exploits of the inhabitants brought it to the attention of the authorities of Bristol, Gloucestershire and Somerset. It was claimed that a criminal gang, unmatched in notoriety, came from Cock Road. In reality, anyone committing a criminal act who lived in the forest was tarnished as a member of the gang. They were engaged in horse stealing, burglary, […]
