Associated with Clifton, and in particular with Clifton Court (now The Chesterfield Nuffield Hospital) is a character called Ann Green. Her simple gravestone is in Clifton churchyard: died 1864, aged 55. Upon those two facts, a Clifton woman wrote a romantic historical novel, Ann Green of Clifton, published in 1936. Scores of details of the topography, the history and even the botany of Clifton and Bristol are worked into the story: the gallows in Pembroke Road, horseracing on The Downs, the chemist's shop in Clifton village, Rolinda Sharples the painter, and the visit of Princess Victoria to Clifton at the age of 10. In this article, William Evans goes in search of the real Ann Green.
Year: 1999
Edward Colston and Bristol
Benefactor or Brute? Edward Colston's statue has long presided over Bristol's city centre. The monument proclaiming the benefactions which this immensely wealthy merchant bestowed on the city in the early eighteenth century was defaced in ... by an obscenity which included the words 'slave trader' spray-painted across the statue's base in blood-red paint. Madge Dresser reviews Ken Morgan’s scholarly pamphlet addresses the contentious topic of the statue which stood in Bristol city centre.
HISTORIANS OF MERE – Part II
The Trouble With Local History
Brian Edwards explores the tensions between individual interest and spatial identity, the reluctance of some local historians to engage in historical debate, and their tendency towards antiquarianism. This article argues that antiquarianism endangers the knowledge of history by masking it. In its place, Edwards advocates for an organic history which reflects popular historical consciousness; a history which embraces everything from photographs of dart teams to invented local traditions.