St John on the Wall, part III
I had a friend who used to work on the Thekla, and was also living on a boat over at Wapping Wharf, so he'd row to and from work on a daily basis. When the fridge and larder were full, he could spend days on end living on the opaque waters of the Bristol harbour (I can't remember the date exactly, but the Thekla still had the green and beige colour scheme that preceded the current black and grey).
He called me one afternoon with news of a discovery and told me to come and see him with a torch. I didn't have any to hand, just a front bike light, but went down that afternoon to see what he'd found. We rowed up past Redcliffe Wharf, underneath Bristol Bridge and towards Castle Park, then took a left into a waterway with a large entrance which seemed to lead under the park.
The tunnel started with a concrete pillar structure, and there were a number of sleepy pigeons down there who were probably slightly surprised to be disturbed of an afternoon. We sat still in the boat without making a sound and could hear the rumble of the city coming down the tunnel. At one point it lowered somewhat so that we had to duck, and the crumbling detritus from hundreds of tiny stalactites fell off the ceiling and down the backs of our necks.
Finally, the tunnel opened out again into a cavern which had the feel of a bad guy's underground lair in a James Bond film. There was a pontoon which led to a staircase, and Rob disappeared straight up it with his excellent torch while I sat alone in the boat with my rapidly fading bike light for company. The sound of the city seemed even louder now. You could tell it was right above us.
He called me up, and we found a door which opened out at the back of Castle Park looking towards Cabot Circus. In the pictures you can see a third person, as the photos above were taken on a second trip down the tunnel (this will surely be the last time!).
Anyway, Rob always maintained that the tunnel followed the route of the old moat that surrounded Bristol Castle, which was on the site where Castle Park is now. I don't know why I was so sure, but I was convinced that Brunel had purpose-built the tunnel to act as a harbour overflow, directing flood water into the river Frome, which has been buried under the city (and pops out by the boxing gym on the M32 bike path towards Easton). While I was recording Kacper playing the organ at St John the other day, I saw a great black and white drawing of the city during its 'Days of Glory'. Not sure when this was exactly! You can see clearly that the waterway had originally been a moat, which Brunel must have then turned into the overflow tunnel. I was quite wrong: it hadn't been purpose built! I'm not sure what the tally of exchanged misinformation is between Rob and me, but I think it's pretty even these days, and that's the main thing.
