Barton Hill | |
---|---|
Location within Bristol | |
OS grid reference | ST609727 |
Unitary authority | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | BRISTOL |
Postcode district | BS5 |
Dialling code | 0117 |
Police | Avon and Somerset |
Fire | Avon |
Ambulance | South Western |
UK Parliament | |
Barton Hill is an area of Bristol, just to the east of the city centre and Bristol Temple Meads railway station.
It includes residential, retail and industrial premises and is crossed by major roads, railway tracks and the feeder canal leading to Bristol Harbour.
The solid geology of Barton Hill is Triassic Redcliffe Sandstone. [1]
Barton was a manor just outside Bristol mentioned in the Domesday Book as Bertune apud Bristov, [2] and later in 1220 as Berton Bristoll. [3] In Saxon and early Norman times the manor was held by the king, and was known as Barton Regis. The manor gave its name to Barton Regis Hundred, the hundred. Sloping ground at the southern end of the hundred, leading down to St Philip's Marsh, became known as Barton Hill. [4]
The Great Western Cotton Factory on Great Western Lane was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in the early 19th century. Great Western Cotton factory opened in 1838 and closed in 1925. From a plan of 1839 the sheds are seen to have contained up to 1600 looms. The main spinning mill was demolished in 1968. [5] [6]
After World War 2, many homes in Barton Hill, Lawrence Hill, Easton and St. Paul's were destroyed due to being bombed. A large housing estate was built in the area during the 1950s and 1960s to house many of the homeless residents of inner city Bristol. Nine tower blocks and two blocks of maisonettes were constructed during this period of time. Many residents of this area and other inner city Bristol areas could not all be housed in these estates and had to be moved to other newly built larger outlying estates such as Southmead, Lawrence Weston, Knowle West and Hartcliffe.
In the afternoon of 14 November 2023, a major incident was declared when 400 residents, including around 100 children, were asked to leave their homes in Barton House, in Barton Hill, after a major structural fault was discovered. [9]
A newsroom page of the Bristol City Council (BCC) website says that Barton House had recently been subject to surveys to assess options for the future of the building due to its age and method of construction. [10] Quoting: "The surveys undertaken to three flats out of the 98 in the block indicate that in the event of a fire, explosion or large impact, there is a risk to the structure of the block. As a precautionary measure and to allow for further, more in depth surveys, residents in the block are being asked to leave Barton House immediately." [10]
Bristol councillor Kye Dudd, a cabinet member for housing services and energy, said that Barton House was not constructed according to plans and that issues were found with its concrete sections. [11] Dudd said: "The issue is within the construction of the building and the job that was done at the time, it wasn't built to the design specs - that's the problem we're dealing with." [11] BCC said there was no record of any structural surveys of Barton House after remedial works were carried out around 1970; nationally, such surveys were not required by law until the Building Safety Act 2022. [12] [13] [14]
Bristol City mayor Marvin Rees said that Barton House might not have been built [in 1958] to the original design specification. [15] He continued that there was a “lack of structural ties between the floors and the load-bearing external walls” and that less concrete had been used than the original plans had specified. [15]
At near 10 am on 17 November, residents held a protest at Bristol City Hall along with members of the community group Acorn. [16] The protestors had gathered inside the City Hall to "hold the council accountable" for the treatment the residents feel they have received since they had been forced to evacuate. [17] The protest ended when residents heard BCC was removing furniture from Barton House flats. [17] Councillor Yassin Mohamud said BCC had not communicated with the residents well but no belongings had been removed without permission. [16]
The protest continued at Barton House and police were called to settle the dispute. [18] BCC released a statement to give more details about what was happening with the situation: "The evacuation is precautionary to allow for further, more in depth surveys, and a fuller analysis of the building's structure." [19] Further: "We don't know yet how long residents will need to continue living away from their homes, this will depend on the work we're carrying out now. You can visit Barton House at any time during the day to collect belongings and essential items you may need." [19]
BCC released an update 29 November saying that survey work is still being carried out to assess a major structural fault. [20] [21] Mayor Rees has said that BCC will know about the future of the building by 15 December 2023 and that BCC's attitude was "not to inconvenience people". [22] He also said that BCCs' actions were "proportionate to… put the safety of the residents first". [22] A resident said to the BBC that it is likely Barton House will have to be demolished "given that it was shored up in 1970." [22] BCC also released an update for people staying in local hotels. [23]
On 15 December in a letter for the residents of Barton House, they were told that the interim results from the surveys that had taken place were now with BCC. [24] [25] The letter gave a date for a meeting to take place on 18 December at Bristol City Hall. [24] BCC's growth and regeneration executive John Smith said that he was pleased to inform the residents that BCC was analysing and discussing the results with surveyors: "By Monday afternoon we will be able to tell you [the residents] more about what the new surveys tell us and what that means for the future." [25] However the tenants of Barton House doubted whether they would back in their homes soon. [26] A representative said: "I can’t see us being back for Christmas... It looks like Christmas is going to very bleak." [26]
A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdiction. It is used as a residential, office building, or other functions including hotel, retail, or with multiple purposes combined. Residential high-rise buildings are also known in some varieties of English, such as British English, as tower blocks and may be referred to as MDUs, standing for multi-dwelling units. A very tall high-rise building is referred to as a skyscraper.
Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist, and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stenciling technique. His works of political and social commentary have appeared on streets, walls, and bridges throughout the world. His work grew out of the Bristol underground scene, which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. Banksy says that he was inspired by 3D, a graffiti artist and founding member of the musical group Massive Attack.
Easton is an inner city area of the city of Bristol in the United Kingdom. Informally the area is considered to stretch east of Bristol city centre and the M32 motorway, centred on Lawrence Hill. Its southern and eastern borders are less defined, merging into St Philip's Marsh and Eastville. The area includes the Lawrence Hill and Barton Hill estates.
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Bristol Cathedral Choir School is a mixed gender non-selective musical Secondary Academy, located in the Cabot area of Bristol, England. Until 2008 it was Bristol Cathedral School, part of Bristol Cathedral, in the centre of the city. The choristers at Bristol Cathedral are educated at the school, which has a strong musical tradition. The new school is a day school and has no boarders. The school admits some pupils each year based on musical aptitude, as well as admitting probationary choristers. That is the school's only form of selection, all other pupils are chosen at random via a lottery system.
Lawrence Hill is an electoral ward of Bristol, United Kingdom and includes the districts of Barton Hill, St Philips Marsh and Redcliffe, Temple Meads and parts of Easton and the Broadmead shopping area. Lawrence Hill takes its name from a leper hospital dedicated to St Lawrence, which was founded by King John.
Stokes Croft is a road in Bristol, England. It is part of the A38, a main road north of the city centre. Locals refer to the area around the road by the same name.
The Bristol underground scene is a cultural movement in Bristol, England, beginning in the early 1980s. The scene was born out of a lack of mainstream clubs catering for the emergence of hip hop music, with street and underground parties a mainstay. Many DJ crews formed in the early '80s playing hip hop, house and soul in disused venues with sound systems were borrowed from the reggae scene: City Rockers, 2 Bad, 2 Tuff, KC Rock, UD4, FBI, Dirty Den, Juice Crew, Rene & Bacus, Soul Twins, Fresh 4 and Bristol ultimate DJ Masters The Wild Bunch. These names were the precursors to the more well known ones that came from this scene. It is characterized by musicians and graffiti artists. The scene was influenced by the city's multiculturalism, political activism, and the art movements of reggae, punk, hip hop, hippies and new age.
See No Evil is a collection of works of public art by multiple graffiti artists, located around Nelson Street in Bristol, UK. The artwork was first created in an event in August 2011 that was Europe's largest street art festival at the time. It culminated with a block party. The street was mostly repainted in a repeat event in 2012. The artworks comprise murals of various sizes, in different styles, some painted on tower blocks, including a 10-storey office block. The works were created under a road closure, using scaffolding and aerial work platforms.
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Grenfell Tower is a derelict 24-storey residential tower block in North Kensington in London, England. The tower was completed in 1974 as part of the first phase of the Lancaster West Estate. Most of the tower was destroyed in a severe fire on 14 June 2017.
Tower blocks are high-rise buildings for residential use. These blocks began to be built in Great Britain after the Second World War. The first residential tower block, "The Lawn", was constructed in Harlow, Essex, in 1951; it is now a Grade II listed building. In many cases, tower blocks were seen as a "quick-fix" to cure problems caused by the existence of crumbling and unsanitary 19th-century dwellings or to replace buildings destroyed by German aerial bombing. It was argued that towers surrounded by public open space could provide for the same population density as the terraced housing and small private gardens they replaced, offering larger rooms and improved views, whilst being cheaper to build.
The Ledbury Estate is a large estate of social housing, in Peckham in the London Borough of Southwark. The estate is just south of the Old Kent Road, part of the A2 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) from both Tower Bridge and the Elephant & Castle it is adjacent to land used by George Livesey for the South London Gasworks.
Well Hung Lover, also called Naked Man Hanging From Window and simply Naked Man, is a mural by the anonymous street artist Banksy, on a wall in Frogmore Street, Bristol, England.
On 14 June 2017, the Grenfell Tower fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST; it caused 72 deaths, including those of two victims who later died in hospital. More than 70 others were injured and 223 people escaped. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster and the worst UK residential fire since the Second World War.
The Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP), also known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest, originally Free Capitol Hill, later the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), was an occupation protest and self-declared autonomous zone in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. The zone, originally covering two intersections at the corners of Cal Anderson Park and the roads leading up to them, was established on June 8, 2020, by people protesting the May 2020 killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The zone was cleared of occupants by police on July 1, 2020.
Criticism of the response to the Grenfell Tower fire primarily consisted of condemnation of issues with the emergency response and fire safety regulation practices in the UK at the time. Broader political criticism was also directed at British society, including condemnation of the response by governmental bodies and UK politicians, social divisions, deregulation issues, and poor transparency overall.
Barton House is a residential tower block in the Barton Hill area of Bristol, England. It is the city's oldest tower block and was officially opened on 23 July 1958.