Bristol General Hospital, which has been tending to the souls of Redcliffe (and beyond) for 180 years, closes in 2012 – but there are bright plans for its future. Shipshape took a snoop inside…
You might not think it as you pass by, but the vast early Victorian complex that overlooks Bathurst Basin down on the Harbour is still a working hospital – albeit now in the late evening of its life. Bristol General Hospital, which will finally close this spring to make way for a hi-tech hospital complex in Bristol’s southern suburbs, is for the moment still a fully-functioning rehabilitation hospital for the elderly and stroke patients, also featuring a sleep unit clinic and sleep studies department.
We won’t be saying goodbye to BGH’s fascinating, if somewhat over-adorned Victorian premises, however. The site has been acquired, for £6 million, by City & Country Group, an award-winning firm that specialises in restoring and conserving older buildings. See panel opposite for more on what C&CG have planned.
Over its long history, Bristol General has touched the lives of many Bristolians – exclusively Bedminster and Redcliffe residents during it early decades, when it began within a string of modest terraced houses further up Guinea Street. The latter, surrounded by water and overlooking fields, was reckoned a healthy spot at the time. The Hospital was built exclusively for the urban poor of those two suburbs, who – unlike their richer neighbours in Clifton, Hotwells and Redland – weren’t enjoying the fruits of Bristol’s new trade wealth.
Today’s far larger General Hospital was begun in 1853 and opened five years later, partly to care for casualties from Bristol’s ever-busier docks and factories. Its designers also thought to provide warehouse space in the basement, which were let to merchants using Bathurst Basin, providing further
income for the hospital.
fascinating snapshot
Here at Shipshape, when we’re offered access to a local institution – especially one that largely passes under the radar of modern Bristolians – we jump at the chance. And a tour of the Hospital, just before it closes down and begins a new life, was irresistible. What, we wondered, was behind this imposing silhouette, a major Harbourside fixture that has remained unchanged while everything around it has changed and reinvented?
As the public doesn’t have access to those areas of the hospital that are still operating, our tour was confined to the dormant parts of the building – some of which have been closed for decades, offering a fascinating snapshot of days (and practices) gone by. The Hospital’s vast catacombs, for example, sit eerily empty (Bristol-set supernatural serial ‘Being Human’ found a perfect home here one episode in 2008), while the spartan mortuary block, disused for decades, has been left to decay elegantly – gurneys, blackboards and all. Elsewhere, a vintage set of scales, used to weigh goods delivered to the basement good store, still remains.
But the Hospital’s real gems lie on the upper floors. We were lucky enough to tour the balconies, gangways and turrets that skirt the building’s soaring, multi-levelled roofs. From here you get a spectacular view of the Harbourside (something of a trump card when the building comes to be redeveloped), and you can finally get a handle on the complex’s sprawling structure. Non-descript (and soon to be removed) 60s additions jut out from the elegant Bath stone archways, while the roof features two colonnades of imposing stone ventilation shafts.
A fascinating and complex old building, in short, with many stories to tell and many echoes of its past still housed within. We hope that a bright future awaits it too…
More: thegeneralbristol.co.uk