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Bristol Records Room
Iv been working in Bristol a fair bit over the last few years so managed to catch up on a few of its classic derps, this you will all be familiar with but hasnt been covered for a few years.
The Bristol Port Railway and Pier company (BPRP) ran from a main terminus at Hotwells (originally called Clifton), northwards to west of Bristol city centre between the Clifton Suspension Bridge and Bridge Valley Road, to a terminus at Avonmouth.
The branch was closed in 1922 to make way for construction of the A4 Portway. The two tunnels that now sit either side of Bridge Valley Road remained. Known as Tunnel #1 and Tunnel #2 they were 160m and 65m long respectively. Tunnel #1 was repurposed as an air raid shelter during world war 2. It was so popular that the council had to initiate a pass system to deal with the numbers that would attempt to use it during raids. This tunnel was then repurposed again in the 1970/80’s when Bristol Gun Club turned around 1/3rd of it into a shooting range.
This is now vandalised & pretty uninteresting.
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Tunnel #2 – the shorter at 65m – seems to have been converted into a ‘records store’ around 1940. There is little information on when it closed although newspaper cuttings inside would suggest it was still in use it the 1970’s. It’s entirely possible that it was in use until the end of the cold war.
After this time the rooms would of most likely became unserviceable & the council moved all their archive services to the create centre only a few 100 yards further down the river.
It is surprising despite the vandalism a fair amount of the metal boxes still survive.
Thats all from here, thanks for looking
