Herbal tinctures and hairspray waft out of doorways as I wander past the shops that occupy the top half of Colston Street. Coins blink at me from a jampacked window display, ready to test the keen eye of an antique hunter and Super 8 cameras and film reels rest in a darkened shopfront, viewable by appointment only.
Then I find a shop that speaks my language.
An air of friendly dust and smoky varnish greets me as I enter Bloom and Curll’s bookshop. I start to browse the books, but find myself just admiring the fine detail of the cabinets, rows of yellowed pages and myriad corners that surprisingly fit into this cosy space.
The owner sits by the window, nursing a book, laptop and cup of tea. I tell him what I’m up to and he points out a black and white photo above the door. It’s of George, the old bookseller that I first heard about from Jeanette at the Joke shop. I draw a mental line between here and there and witness another layer of time gently adding itself to the fabric of the street.
Across the way, lonely chairs look down from the balcony of Zero Degrees, a steely bar restaurant on the site of the old tramshed. The ramp, which once rolled up double-decker trams, now rolls in the clientele, a blend of uptown workers and Park Street layabouts.
I join on to Upper Maudlin St, where four lanes of traffic charge up and down. But I’ve eyed an escape route in the form of a fissure on the map that meanders its way between the buildings.
I don’t come across it, however, until I’m almost level with the Royal Infirmary. At this point, the buildings fall away to reveal Johnny Ball Lane, a sinister thoroughfare that drops into a narrow conduit leading to a graffiti-ridden corner. I start down the steps, leaving the bustle behind me and regret previously reading that in 1757, a piece of ground next to the lane was granted as a place of burial for the dead of the hospital. It got so packed with bodies that it became a graverobbers delight before being moved to a new location.
I turn the corner into silence. Up ahead, giant arched walls of red brick rise up 40ft to the workshops of Colston Yard, while the lane curves away uneasily to the left.
I find debris from ‘the night before’ littering the ground and follow its trail to a derelict backyard, heaped with rubbish and flourishing weeds. Further down, an out of control bush sprawls across the way, plunging the final section into darkness. A lamppost and a CCTV camera are camped out amongst the vegetation. Then from the darkness comes light and I emerge on to Lewins Mead, outside the Hotel du Vin with its fountain gushing affluently in the courtyard.
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- Bloom & Curll
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- Johnny Ball Lane
AJ Rankin 