The story of No. 51
From a bowyer’s shops in 1385 to the cafés of the 2010s, chapter by chapter.
No. 51 Broad Street is a Grade II listed building of 1867 to 1868, with a polychrome Venetian Gothic front by the Bristol architect Archibald Ponton. The plot it stands on has a recorded history going back to 1295, and for much of that time it has been a place to eat, drink and meet.
Read the chapters in order, or jump to the period you remember.
- 1295 to 1531A plot on Broad Street, 1295 to 1531
Before there was a No. 51 there was a strip of land running back from the street, with shops at the front and a tavern behind. The records go back more than seven centuries.
- 1532 to 1700The Grammar School’s tenements, 1532 to 1700
For almost three centuries the plot helped pay for one of Bristol’s oldest schools.
- 1606 to 1863The Innholders’ Hall and the Cyder House
Behind the street front stood the meeting place of Bristol’s innkeepers, and later a cider house that gave its name to the passage beside No. 51.
- c. 1826 to 1867The Brandy Cask
Spirit merchants, a landlady, a barmaid honoured by the barristers of Bristol, and a tavern its owners claimed was already two hundred years old.
- 1867 to 1868The Gothic rebuild, 1867 to 1868
Archibald Ponton’s polychrome front, with its arcades, its carved dragons and a billiard room behind the great first-floor arches.
- 1868 to 1927Wine merchants and a Café d’Italie
William Stevens and his stoneware flagons, the Best Brand Company, an auction at the Grand Hotel and an Italian café.
- 1920s to 1995Fire, Accident, Marine, Life
Four words carved into the roundels of the first-floor arches tell of a new life for the building as an insurance office.
- 1995 to the early 2000sCity NetGates: Bristol’s first internet café
“The pit stop on the information superhighway”: Pentium PCs, Windows 95, cappuccino and a balloon flight over Bristol.
- 2000sme:me
Sally James’s business at No. 51, after NetGates.
- early 2010sWild At Heart
A shoe shiner on the pavement, and inside a haircut, teeth whitening, flowers, a wedding dress or a party.
- 2015 to 2020Ironworks Supply Co.
An Australian-style café bar with its own clothing corner, opened in seven weeks and three days in the summer of 2015.
- 2001 to 2003Homes upstairs
In 2001 the upper floors, offices for generations, were turned into three flats. Photographs taken during the work show the building stripped back to its bones.