On Saturday the kids and me went down to the Bath Road near the Thunderbolt pub and the paintworks to see Scott Barden's 1831 Bristol Riots mural. Scott Barden's mural
It's massive and I guess as well as being a mural it's graffiti since he just put on a safety helmet and started painting it. I can't see anyone objecting! There's no-one around. This area was destroyed as part Bristol City Council's misguided ring road plans of the 1970s (which were never built), a scandalous story told in Kate Pollard's book Totterdown Rising Shops and cinemas were pulled down and people moved from the Three Lamps area to places like Stockwood on the outskirts of the city. There's a strange resonance to the painting, as you look around the ravaged urban scene now and look up at the Georgian buildings in the painting burning as a result of the anger of Bristolians, protesting about their lack of representation. Thank you Scott for reminding us of our history in Bristol, the kids loved it!
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