England
Bristol
A Victorian cemetery swallowed by woodland, caves under the docks, and a pub with skin on the door.
Bristol is a scruffy, hilly old port that has never been too tidy about its past. Under the docks run medieval caves; above them a 45-acre Victorian cemetery has been left to go back to woodland, ivy pulling down the angels; and its oldest pubs trade cheerfully on ancient grimness, one of them supposedly with a strip of human skin nailed under the paint of its door.
It is a city of gothic churches and a great neo-gothic tower, of Georgian streets built on hard money, steep medieval steps and one of the best alternative scenes in the country. Green, damp and quietly strange. Follow the hills down to the water.
Go when Autumn, when Arnos Vale turns to leaf-litter and mist and the river gorge fills with fog. Bristol does damp and green year-round.
Haunt
What to See
Ossuaries, oddity museums, cemeteries, and the odd corners most guides skip.
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Arnos Vale Cemetery
Forty-five acres of Victorian garden cemetery on a wooded hillside, left half-wild for decades so the ivy could pull the angels down, now cared for by a trust that keeps it just this side of a jungle. Classical tombs, ruined chapels, deer and foxes, and quiet enough to hear the leaves. One of the great Victorian cemeteries, and free.
Best shot Ivy-swallowed monuments and a classical chapel among the trees, in autumn leaf-fall.
- Quiet
- Solo-friendly
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St Mary Redcliffe
The gothic church Queen Elizabeth I called the fairest in England, a soaring pile of pinnacles and flying buttresses under a needle spire, richer and darker inside than the actual cathedral across town. Look for the whalebone by the door and the tomb effigies worn smooth. Free.
Best shot The spire and buttresses against the sky, or the vaulting shot straight up.
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Bristol Cathedral
A cathedral with a rare hall-church design and a genuinely strange Norman chapter house carved with interlacing patterns, plus the Berkeley chapel and worn medieval tombs. Quieter and odder than Redcliffe. Free.
- Quiet
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The Wills Memorial Building
A vast neo-gothic tower crowning the top of Park Street, one of the last great Gothic Revival buildings in England, all pinnacles and a fan-vaulted entrance hall, built with tobacco money in the 1920s. Mostly a university building, but stand under it at dusk and it looms like something from a darker century.
Best shot The floodlit gothic tower at the head of Park Street, at blue hour.
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Redcliffe Caves
A network of man-made caves dug into the red sandstone under Redcliffe, used for storing goods off the ships and, grimly, tangled up in the cargoes of the slave trade. Dark, damp and open only on occasional guided days, so check ahead. Bristol’s underside, literally.
- Solo-friendly
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Christmas Steps
A steep, narrow flight of medieval steps lined with tiny old shops, art dealers and a pub, tucked between the modern streets. One of the last genuinely old corners of the centre, and a good place to get lost for ten minutes.
Best shot The stepped lane climbing between the leaning old shopfronts, lamps lit.
- Solo-friendly
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The Red Lodge Museum
A Tudor house of the 1580s hidden off Park Row, with a spectacular oak-panelled Great Oak Room carved to the ceiling and a knot garden outside. Small, dim, free and properly old. Barely anyone goes.
- Quiet
- Solo-friendly
Rest
Where to Stay
B&Bs, haunted old hotels, Victorian piles. No hostels, ever.
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Hotel du Vin Bristol
$$$A moody hotel built into a cluster of 18th-century sugar-refining warehouses, exposed brick and iron and dark bedrooms named after wines, with a candlelit bistro and a bottle-lined cellar. Central, characterful and properly dim.
- Adults only
- Quiet
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Bristol Harbour Hotel
$$$A hotel inside two grand old banks on Corn Street, a marble Italianate banking hall turned bar and a spa dug into the original vaults below, where the gold once sat. Sleep on the money.
- Adults only
- Quiet
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Number Thirty Eight Clifton
$$$A Georgian townhouse boutique high in Clifton with long views over the city and the gorge, dark handsome rooms and a calm distance from the centre. For the quiet, moneyed end of the trip.
- Quiet
Feast
Where to Eat & Drink
Candlelit cellars, dark bars, rooms with history in the walls.
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The Hatchet Inn
$One of the oldest pubs in the city, going since 1606, low and black-beamed, with a door that legend insists is layered with human skin from executed criminals beneath the black paint. Nobody is stripping it back to check. A rock-and-metal pub these days, loud and unbothered.
- Adults only
- Party scene
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The Rummer
$$An ancient coaching inn hidden in a lane by St Nicholas Market, its medieval cellars turned over to serious cocktails. Old stone below, good drinks throughout. Duck in off the market.
- Adults only
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Hyde & Co
$$$A prohibition-style hidden cocktail bar behind an unmarked door in Clifton, low light and expert drinks and no sign at all. Knock, or walk past it three times like everyone else.
- Adults only
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The Ostrich
$$A 1745 harbourside pub built against the red cliffs above the Redcliffe Caves, with a big terrace over the water. Old, salty and a good last pint before the walk home.
- Solo-friendly
Loot
Where to Shop
Vintage, avant-garde black, and oddities to take home. No fast fashion.
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St Nicholas Market
A rambling Georgian covered market and its surrounding lanes, full of independent stalls: vintage, vinyl, incense, silver, old books and street food. The best browse in the city, and refreshingly un-chain.
- Solo-friendly
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RePsycho
A long-running vintage warehouse up Gloucester Road, floor after floor of decades-deep clothing, denim and fancy dress. Dig properly and you will find your black.
- Solo-friendly
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Bloom & Curll
An eccentric secondhand bookshop, stacked and scrawled and piled to the rafters, the owner’s handwritten notes on the shelves, strong on the odd and the literary. A proper rabbit hole.
- Solo-friendly
- Quiet
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