Why are there so many colourful houses in Bristol?
secretbristol.com
secretbristol.com
> Red buildings signified churches, schools, teachers’ or ministers’ houses. Yellow colours were assigned to hospitals, doctors, and health care personnel. Green was at first the symbol for radio communication and later became the colour of telecommunications. The colour blue was often reserved for fish factories. Police stations were black.
https://www.polar-quest.com/blog/greenland/the-backstory-of-...
Snow. At least that'd be my first guess for not going with white.
In general, you want to use distinctive characteristics that aren't common in that environment.
Imagine trying to find a hospital under these conditions, vibrant color coding helps save lives then:
I think it's completely reasonable to assume Greenland has relatively separate history from wherever you got the "white and blue" intuition from.
I’ve also heard it said that this area was popular popular with artists and the rebellious types back in the day vs the more posh types in Clifton on top of the hill. There are some photos of the harbour from back when it was a working harbour, before the houses were painted, and it looks far less appealing (https://www.instagram.com/p/CyMNzAXIOY-/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFl...). If you do end up on Instagram search for Bristol harbour to see what it’s like now.
In the 70s Clifton wasn't really posh either. Like many cities at the time the affluent had moved out to the suburbs (e.g. across the Downs or Gorge). Difficult to believe now, of course.
Classic behaviour by old red-trousers.
She finally managed to keep a pink door though:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-662...
The parent comment also opined on a scenario in which the person's actions (paint, then ask permission) landed them an official letter and threat of fine, which seems like "a big deal" to some people.
As you say, a bit of color would not fix the underlying problems, but it would make life a bit more enjoyable.
It’s on a 100 year old estate with cherry blossoms in every garden, and completely detracts from the area.
During the lockdowns the Barbican was a nice area to walk through
There are far worse buildings on the South bank of the Thames, I walk it a lot - the IBK building + ITV studios, the weird brutalist buildings near Blackfriars bridge are pretty ugly (the new '1 blackfriars' is built in the shape of a massive sarcophagus/ coffin from some angles).
There's the weird concrete pub on the others side which is pretty ugly too.
I was going to come here to say, why aren't more places more colourful. In this day in age though, it is obvious: everything is manufactured and manufactured finishes typically offer limited options for colour. It's not like we live in the days of wood, or even steel, that had to be regularly repainted to protect it from the elements.
Some of the people who own houses in my area have started hacking off the painted cement and brought the houses back to plain brick. Even some of the ones who had murals painted on them for Upfest (mentioned in the article), it seems a more conservative feel has started taking over. I think it’s sad to see the colours disappearing.
Honestly though the bright colours are mostly on the highly visible houses on hillsides, as soon as you get into the thick of the houses, even up in fancy Clifton it all turns a lot less colourful for 99%. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I think people just like having their house as part of the view, and contribute their little bit, just so they can say "I'm the pink one on the end" - I would :D
It's been a vibrant alternative town, but from what I understand, this made it desirable to more and more people moved in, especially as London (and I guess Brighton) became completely out of reach for most people on normal incomes. What follows is probably a more conservative, less colourful mindset...
Painting houses like this is quite common in Wales, near the sea particularly. See places like Tenby. Bristol being very close to Wales means it does have more cultural crossover than the rest of the UK, I wonder if that has anything to do with it.
Who did it first?
Roman houses, much like their now-white statues, were very colourful, so I suspect they spread their love of coloured plaster wherever they settled. Though I am not an historian (IANAH).
Scotland has Portree and Tobermory.
Ireland has loads of painted rows like this.
* Ex-mayor George Ferguson (mentioned in the article) always wears red trousers, except when Bristol won the European Green Capital 2015 he wore green trousers in celebration.
* All licensed taxis in Bristol are blue, specifically Bristol Blue https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_blue_glass
"Narrator: Sir Bedevere the Wise was the first to become one of King Arthur's Knights. But other illustrious names were soon to follow: Sir Lancelot the Brave, Sir Gallahad the Pure, Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot — who had nearly fought the Dragon of Angnor, who had nearly stood up to the Vicious Chicken of Bristol, and who had personally wet himself at the Battle of Badon Hill — and the aptly named Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film. Together they formed a band whose names and deeds were to be retold throughout the centuries: the Knights of the Round Table."
https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g186220-...
Apparently, they would use boat paint because: A) they had a lot of it and B) it holds up well to the elements.
I’ve always heard that we painted the houses with whatever paint was on hand because the wind is strong that it strips away every couple of years. And we’re not a rich group of people, so whatever paint you have is the right paint!
My grandfather used to remark on the houses “they were crap when the went up, but somehow lasted 50 years, so I guess they’re heritage now”.
But, they do look pretty in the summer!
Still. Check that border map according to what Quebec thinks vs official maps of Canada.
- The houses tended to be colorful
- Almost all the buildings I saw looked like they were just painted, I did see a couple buildings with peeling paint, but I think they were abandoned
- I personally saw around 10 different people in the middle of painting their houses just driving along in remote rural areas, all in the span of about a week. Where I live (in California), I only see this about once every 5 years.
- Paint stores are widespread, even in small rural towns where there are hardly any businesses at all
I don't know why the people of Newfoundland love painting their buildings so much, but it really makes the place look nice.
Atlantic Canadian here Newfoundland is famous for that. Not so much here in PEI but I think there are some bright buildings near the shore of fishing villages.
For more Bristol, I highly recommend the BBC comedy-drama series The Outlaws.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000jjn8/a-house-throu...
Honourable mention to Windmill Hill City Farm on the other side of town too.
Since this post is likely to be a good honeypot: can anybody recommend any good tech meetups here? I run an energy tech company and looking to meet like-minded folk
Lots of other meetups for various aspect of tech. It's Bristol Tech Festival this week too. https://techspark.co/tech-festival/
There is also PyData Bristol (https://www.meetup.com/pydata-bristol/)
Also SWUX https://www.meetup.com/swux-meetup-com/ which is UX (so not technically tech), but has an excellent tech-adjacent community, and lot of members who work for tech companies even if they're not techies themselves.
Its not uncommon to find a giant pile of cabbage tree leaves behind someone's house because they have been meaning for years to take them to the rubbish dump. Every so often someone asks on reddit what they should do with their pile.
Another interesting face is they can live to 400+ years although often they can rot internally after 100.
Right, let's dig into the authoritative source of all knowledge ... Wikipedia! According to that:
"Riviera is an Italian word that originates from the ancient Ligurian territory of Italy"
So the French region that Torbay riffs on is also itself riffing on an Italian region.
and: "The Côte d'Azur (coast of azure) is a nickname given by France to the County of Nice after its annexation in 1860, because the climate was similar to that of the north of Italy,"
When you look at it like that: English/Devon/Torbay Riviera is simply following a proud European tradition. Riviera is simply a generic term (originates from Italian) for a region with a specific climate. If you read further through the WP article it seems that Brits were involved in the original use of the term and that explains why we would designate a similarly named region here.
No need to cringe.
Maybe nitpicking but the French Riviera is just the (now) French side of the "original" Riviera. It's not a reference to a different place.
Nice used to be part of Liguria before the 1860 annexation and the English simply kept refering to it as Riviera (while the French, including locals, only call it Côte d'Azur).
Riviera is still an Italian term, regardless of where it is applied - France or Inglaterra.
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes all the same
There's a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same
"Little Boxes", 1961 [1]
It refers to Daly City, incidentally. Multicolored tract houses were a 1950s California thing.
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/coulorful-houses-...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painted_ladies
I have this vague, hand-wavy impression it's somewhat common in coastal communities.
I spent some time looking for a term for a particular house style and can't seem to find it. There's a particular style of small house with big windows and shutters typically found in beach vacation towns and they tend to be colorful.
https://www.untoldmorsels.com/burano-venice-colorful-houses-...
Also worth mentioning (response to a comment above) that there's a lot of colourful houses and murals all over the city, not just on the bits you see on postcards...!
I still have very good friends (and memories) in Bristol.
Nothing but positive things to say from the city and from big hearted Bristolians. Like you say there really is a positive energy about the place. Truly gert lush!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_stool_scale
https://www.continence.org.au/bristol-stool-chart
They should open up an amusement park with themed rides and attractions to rival the Hundeprutterutchebane.