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| Elizabeth I's "fort", 1574 |
On the historical map of 1828, my eyes were drawn to a rather mysterious note on a patch of land less than 200metres north of our house (where Osborne Street now is): “site of the fort erected for the amusement of Queen Elizabeth when on a visit to Bristol, 1574” (see above extract from 1828 map - "X" is the site of our house!)(double click on image to enlarge).
This is an extract from the “Early Theatre” website by Francis Wardell:
"When Elizabeth I visited Bristol in 1574 she was entertained by an impressive three day mock battle. Such a performance differed from the traditional protocol of using a combination of pageants and petitions… Throughout, the entertainment maintains an allegory of War, represented by the offensive forces, in conflict with Peace, symbolized by the defending fort. The artificial conflict concludes with the queen herself being given the role of adjudicator and administering over negotiations for a peaceful treaty”.
Bizarre! Perhaps,
not surprisingly, I’d no knowledge of any such event!
The Bristol Records Office/”knowyourplacebristol” website
included the above photograph of the Dean Lane Pit (taken in about 1875, I
think) which was open from the 1850s until the first decade of the 1900s. I
also came across a note that ten people were killed in an explosion at the Dean
Lane Pit on 11 September 1886.
It was a hard,
hard life! 
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