Bristol The Hairy Bikers' Pubs That Built Britain

Pubs have been at the heart of Britain for hundreds of years.

Cheers, mucker.

-In city taverns...

-..and village inns...

..landlords have pulled pints for locals, travellers,

and, well, the odd King or two.

'Myself included.'

Try and have a drink now!

But, with 30 pubs closing every week,

our historic taverns need defending.

We're heading out to discover amazing stories

linked to the nation's watering holes.

-Not far to go.

-How far?

-Oh, couple of miles.

-What?!

From the Wars of the Roses...

..to shipbuilding on the Clyde.

We've ditched our bikes, so that we can sample and ale or two.

Get in!

This is very good.

So, join us for...

With its harbour and shipping heritage, Bristol's long been

a city of salty sea dogs, with tales by the barrel load.

And today I'm on my tod,

to delve into Bristol's murky seafaring past, through

a tour of the pubs that refreshed its sailors after months at sea.

Land ahoy!

Me old landlubber mate Si is stuck in port, so he's sent me

on a solo voyage, down the West Country.

Avast, ye swabs!

Do you know, I haven't got a Scooby-Doo what all that means.

But, you know, I bet they only said that after they'd

been in the pub all night, drinking rum.

Talking of which...

I'm heading back to the early 1700s,

when Britannia really did rule the waves.

Britain's new world colonies kept merchant seamen

busy on the transatlantic trade routes,

and wars with foreign rivals

meant demand was high for seamen in the Royal Navy, too.

And this bustling city's position in the South West made it

an ideal gateway to this exciting, seafaring world.

Hello, mate.

'Oh, and I've got a new first mate. Sorry Si!'

I'm going to take a sneaky peek

at an unusually named hostelry.

The Hole In The Wall -

it sounds like a hang-out for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,

but, in fact, there is a hole.

It was a spy hole used by sailors

to keep a lookout for evil villains, like press gangs

and people offering you a PPI claim.

I'll tell you what, we need one of those down my local pub.

This place is a sailor's paradise they reckon

dates back to the 17th century.

Historian Dr Richard Stone

knows all about its unique nautical story.

-Hello, Richard. It's lovely to meet you.

-Yes, and you.

So what sort of people would have used this pub?

Well, a lot of sailors would have used it.

There's a lot of pubs in the docks here in Bristol,

about 180 in all just in this small area.

You can imagine the thirsty sailors all diving in here, because they'd

be coming from the four corners of the globe, in those days.

Yes, of course pubs are really important places for sailors.

It's where they would have come to socialise, to drink, to stay, or even to look for work.

But sometimes the work came looking for THEM.

Bands of Royal Navy recruiters, called press gangs, roamed

the taverns of Bristol looking for sailors to force into naval service.

But this pub had a trick up its sleeve.

It's called The Hole In The Wall because one of its most unusual

architectural features is this little slit window which,

the story goes, that the sailors drinking here could

station someone to look out of the window,

and then keep an eye out for any press gang who were coming along.

Right. And was there a very great fear of the press gangs?

Yeah, press gangs could be a real menace.

Basically, people weren't that willing to serve in the Navy.

Conditions weren't great, pay wasn't great,

so they often had to be coerced into doing it by force.

-And were the press gangs violent?

-Yes, they could be.

They often had to use force to be able to recruit people.

Often someone would refuse, it would descend into a fight

to get them to come along. They would deliberately

-get people drunk as well.

-Right.

-Next thing you know,

-you'd wake up on board ship.

-Oh, God.

And of course there's the famous King's shilling which you're

given, literally as a sign you've joined the Navy.

-And how does that work?

-It's literally something you'd be handed,

and then it would mean you became part of the Navy.

But also they'd come up with all kinds of devious means - for example

they might just literally drop it into someone's drink,

and then they suddenly discover they're part of the Navy.

Using a man's own pint of ale against him,

how low can you get?

But of course people got wise to this.

And so then they developed these glass-bottom tankards, so they could

look in the bottom of it and check whether there was a coin there.

Blimey, all this talk is making me nervous.

Excuse me, Barman. Barman?

I think it's off.

Someone want to keep an eye on that hole in the wall, I tell you.

'Too right.

'Those poor old sailors couldn't even relax down their local alehouse. Criminal!'

As Bristol's shipping trade grew through the 17th and 18th centuries,

it didn't just pack the pubs with thirsty sailors -

it also provided the booze.

-Hello, James. Pleased to meet you.

-And you too.

Writer and cider aficionado James Russell knows all about

the tipples they would have enjoyed back then.

He's even brought some drinks for us to sample.

Now, if we were two sailors, and we came into a 17th or 18th century

Bristol tavern, what would our choice of drinks have been like?

We would have been spoilt for choice, we could have had

a glass of rum from the West Indies,

some sherry from Spain,

wine from France...

This was because of Bristol's position as, like,

-a global importer.

-Absolutely,

we had all of this trade coming in, and then of course you had,

more locally, cider which was being made just up the Severn...

-Right.

-..in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire,

and sold here in the pubs as well as being exported.

-Yes.

-It was big business back in the 17th, 18th centuries.

People were making a lot of money out of it, and around 10% of

the land was put down to orchards because cider was so popular.

So was cider quite an egalitarian drink?

Was it for poor people, posh people, or everybody?

You know what? That is exactly right.

'Everyone drank cider - but some ciders were posher than others.'

You know, you got your champagne cider.

-This is the kind of thing...

-CORK POPS

-Whoa.

-Oh.

-..that the gentry were drinking.

Charles II - very fond of a glass of cider.

It would have been pretty expensive, and it was bottled here in Bristol.

Oh, that is very fine.

-Pretty clean.

-That's pretty good, isn't it?

Yes, it's the right kind of sweet and savoury...

Oh, that's beautiful.

Well, apart from the sort of champagne cider

you've got your West Country cider,

known to a lot of people as scrumpy.

I've had some bad experiences with scrumpy,

some of which I think will turn up on the internet one day.

'I hope this won't end up the same way!'

-Cheers.

-Cheers.

Ooh, that's lovely.

It's quite sweet. It's got a taste of honey.

It's very different to the scrumpy I know.

-"I am a cider drinker." Cheers.

-Cheers.

Ooh-arr! Cider inside your insides - lovely!

Right, that's me all shipshape and Bristol fashion,

ready to take on whatever comes next.

Whoa! Now, there's an expression.

It comes from when Bristol was famous for its tidal harbour.

At low tide, there'd be no water at all,

so the ships moored there would fall off the keel one way...

or the other way.

The result was that unless everything was tidied away

it would tumble all over the place.

Unless, of course, you were...

shipshape and Bristol fashion.

And, on the shipshaped

streets of Bristol, you can

learn more about the city's past

from the pub signs.

Here's three faves

from the ocean waves.

The punters at The Ostrich Inn aren't the types

to hide their heads in the sand,

though they might have turned a blind eye over the centuries.

The pub boasts a cave supposedly used

to hide smugglers' stash.

The King William Ale House,

on the other hand, couldn't be more regal.

Sitting on King Street, its sign bears the Royal coat of arms.

I wonder if my mate Kingy's ever visited.

He'd fit right in.

And The Golden Guinea in Redcliffe

proudly displays the face

of one of its reputed regulars -

local boy Blackbeard the pirate.

Oh, he's got better chops than me.

Back on the streets of Bristol, I still want to know more

about the city's seafaring story.

So I've headed down to the harbour.

I love harbours, and back in the 1700s

this place would have been so ram-jam packed with ships,

it was possible to walk from one side to the other

by stepping boat to boat.

But all these ships - who kept them seaworthy?

Here at the Underfall Boatyard,

further west on Bristol's floating harbour, skilled craftspeople

have been keeping the city's vessels afloat since shipping's golden age.

A Bristol lad keeping these traditions alive today

is boat builder John Raymond-Barker.

He's showing me his latest restoration project.

-Hello, John. Dave.

-Hello. Pleased to meet you.

Lovely to meet you. God, this is a proper boatyard, isn't it?

-Yeah, yeah.

-What a beautiful boat.

She's an original pilot cutter.

Bristol Channel pilot cutters would transport specialised pilots

to ships in the channel, for them to safely navigate vessels

the final dangerous leg into harbour.

Historic valet parkers, if you like.

We're restoring her ground up, really.

I mean, replacing most of her hull and planking.

And it's going to be used as a family vessel.

Gosh, what an heirloom.

-Do you want to come up and have a look?

-Yeah. That'd be wonderful.

'Wait for me, John!'

-You're used to bouncing up these two at a time, aren't you?

-Yeah.

Bloomin' heck.

'By heck, he's like a mountain goat.'

-What's she called, this one?

-This one's called Breeze.

-Breeze.

-1887 she was built.

One of the oldest pilot cutters surviving.

We've been restoring her extensively.

There's a fair bit of original boat still in her,

and including the mast, which is down here...

-Oh, yes.

-..which is original pitch pine.

But I think she'll be the only pilot boat with an original mast in her.

Fantastic.

Why specifically in Bristol did you need a pilot cutter?

The Bristol Channel is notorious for bad weather

and very fast tidal streams,

and a huge rise of tide.

So you've got something like I think, 13, 14 foot rise of tide.

-Aye, aye.

-And the Bristol pilotage was unique

in the way that it was private.

So throughout the rest of the country, pilots

-were run by the council.

-Yes.

But in the Bristol Channel, they got paid

by a percentage of the value of the cargo.

So if you got the right cargo, you were a rich man.

'And the pilot cutters

'made sure the valuable cargo of those large ships made it to shore.'

I'm always impressed by the fact that these ships would navigate

across the world and come back safely,

I've no idea how they did it.

It's hard to think that the last lap, you know,

-they needed somebody to park the car!

-Yeah.

This is wonderful, you should be very proud, John.

Well, thank you so much, and congratulations, she's beautiful.

Pleasure.

And boat builders weren't the only craftspeople needed to keep

a busy port afloat.

Next door, in Underfall Boatyard, is blacksmith Joanna Williams,

who is also keeping traditional skills alive.

-Hello, Joanna. Dave.

-Oh, hiya, Dave.

-How are you?

-I'm OK, thank you.

It's amazing to see this in a boatyard

but I suppose, you know, back in the 1700s -

I suppose a boatyard, it had to have a blacksmith.

But what sort of things were being made?

They would have made things like this, which is a swivel shackle.

-So, that would have been used for some kind of rigging.

-Yeah.

-And it would definitely hold quite a lot of tonnage.

-Cor.

And then er...other sort of bits and pieces.

So you'd actually even make the chain...

Of course - when you think that the anchor chains

-were made link by link.

-Yep.

I suppose everything that was metal on a ship

used to be made by the blacksmith.

Do you think they would have taken the blacksmith on board with them when they went to sea?

-On long voyages they would have.

-Yeah?

Blacksmiths travelled on large ships,

on hand to repair any metal parts.

I don't fancy keeping that fire going on a wooden ship.

The type of smithing that you're doing is, like,

heritage blacksmithing, isn't it? It's the old ways.

I do traditional forge work, so I use all the traditional methods.

I'll cut on the anvil...

So, this is a very important part of your kit.

Yeah, my lovely, lovely anvil. Definitely.

-Yeah?

-And my favourite hammer.

So, I'll fire weld...

Fire welding, what's that?

That's when you're actually joining two bits of metal together.

So you bring it up to a really high, almost molten heat...

-Yes.

-..and then you give it a hit, get loads and loads of sparks...

I wonder, in those days

do you think there were any women blacksmiths?

Well, I don't think there would have been any women on ships.

-No?

-Let alone any woman blacksmiths.

Welcome to the 21st century. Yay!

-OK, do you want to have a go at fire welding?

-Yeah!

Right. You'd better go and get your gear on.

Look at this.

You've got me all-new togs.

'Well, there's a fire...

'It can be all that different from cooking. Right?'

My buckle's come off.

'Maybe I can forge a new one. Hah!'

Hey, Joanna.

-You can't tell I'm brand-new, can you?

-SHE LAUGHS

So I suppose this would be the most basic,

-like, simplest form of welding, isn't it?

-Definitely.

This is how everything was welded together before machines.

OK, have a look...

Cos that's white hot, isn't it?

-Little bit hotter, put it back in.

-That it, yeah?

White heat.

It's warm here, like.

It's generally ME in the kitchen

that's saying whether it's done or not.

OK. Quickly...

And then hit it.

Hey!

# If I had a hammer

# I'd hammer in the morning

# I'd hammer in the evening... #

That's it. Excellent.

I nearly put your best hammer in the forge.

-There you go, you fire welded.

-Hey!

-Is that done now?

-That's it. Put it on the side...

'Ooh, those blacksmiths back in the day,

'they certainly earned their beer.'

I tell you what though, Joanna, it's all very well doing it here,

but can you imagine doing it on a rolling ship at sea?

There'd be sparks everywhere.

-Now, you've probably got the thirstiest job, haven't you, really? The boatyard?

-Definitely.

Thank you, Joanna, that was brilliant. Thank you.

-No worries.

-Thank you.

-Brilliant.

And I know just the place to quench that thirst -

Bristol's historic city centre.

Back in the 18th century,

these streets were full of pubs packed with thirsty sailors.

Local history buff Mark Steeds

is going to give me a guided tour.

-Hello, Mark.

-Matey, how are you?

-It's great to meet you.

-Great to meet you.

Aw, these streets are fab.

Just paint me a picture. What was life like on these streets in the 1700s?

You had the docks right there, right into the heart of the city.

You had Marsh Street just running off of it -

37 pubs in that street.

That's were all the lowlifes were,

the ladies of the night, sailors, dockers... Everything.

Sounds great!

-Well! There was a pub there called The Jolly Sailor.

-Yeah?

That pub, the landlady got a bullet in the neck

from one of the press gang.

Rule number one - don't shoot the landlady.

-Not if you want a drink.

-No!

Then you came into King Street just here,

and you've still got the atmosphere and the feel

in Bristol's most historic street.

-Right, lead on, Mark.

-MARK LAUGHS

-This street's alive with pubs, isn't it?

-Cor, not half.

Yeah, we've got the Bunch Of Grapes there

and then the Naval Volunteer...

-The Famous Royal Navy Volunteer?

-Yeah.

-That's a contradiction in terms, isn't it?

They didn't have any choice, did they?

They didn't have any choice. Cracked over the head, all sorts, just to get them there.

No-one wanted to be in the Navy.

That looks like an interesting pub, The Llandoger Trow.

What on earth's a Llandoger trow?

Llandoger is a corruption of Llandogo,

which is a place on the River Wye.

It harks back to Bristol's old trading days, and the trows,

flat-bottomed boats that used to go across the Bristol Channel

and trade with ports all up and down...

They used to come over and deposit their goods here.

'The Llandoger Trow's very first landlord was no landlubber.'

The original pub was run by an old sea dog,

a chap by the name of Hawkins,

-and he opened the pub in 1664.

-Gosh!

Around the time this pub first opened,

the high seas were experiencing another big boom -

in piracy. Arrr!

One of the most notorious actually came from Bristol, Blackbeard.

And he was quite a guy, he was.

Big black beard, he used to eat glass

so his gums bled when he interrogated people.

He had lighted tapers under his hat,

he had all sorts of things to intimidate people. Quite a guy!

Sounds like Si's doppelganger, if you ask me!

Many a seafaring tale's been spun about Blackbeard,

and one of the most fearsome is how he died -

on a ship, fighting some Royal Navy officers.

In this fight, Blackbeard took 20 cuts to his body,

five musket balls to him,

when a Scottish seaman with his claymore took Blackbeard's head off.

And they picked Blackbeard's body up, threw it over the side

and he swam three times round the ship before he went under.

They picked up his head, pickled it,

and then used it as a drinking vessel.

Wow, that's some ending!

'Eugh! The only thing I like pickled in a pub is an egg.'

Isn't it funny there's all these tales of daring-do

around the world, and it all comes back to Bristol pubs.

'And it's time for Mark and I to pop into one.'

-Shall we?

-Yes, come along, come along.

'We'll have to toast old Blackbeard after all.'

And I know another pub in Bristol

where a pint could have you rolling down the aisles.

It's time to meet... a local who loves his local.

In the South Bristol area of Hartcliffe

is the appropriately named Hartcliffe Inn.

And it's a right proper regulars' boozer,

loved by local Geoff Snook.

The Hartcliffe Inn is very much a local pub.

There was a big protest when they attempted to close it.

Well, I started coming to the pub in 1978.

Jeff plays in the pub's skittles team.

Well, I play for two teams here.

My daughter plays, my dad and mum both played,

I've got three brothers and two sisters

and over the years we've all played.

My father-in-law still comes with us on Sundays,

you know, and he's 85, so...

There's a long tradition of skittles

in the pubs of Bristol and the West Country,

with unique rules and customs that have survived generations.

And here in The Hartcliffe Inn,

they're proud to keep the local game alive.

It's a big community thing, really.

It brings people here, and you know people from the other pubs.

You know, a lot of them you only see once or twice a year

but it's people you went to school with.

Which obviously in my case was a long time ago!

It's not just skittles in the pub,

they've got darts teams, they've got pool teams,

they've got a motorcycle club, fishing club...

It is the centre of the area for most people.

In tough times for local pubs, this right fine boozer has kept itself

at the heart of the local community,

and the skittles keep the punters coming back for more.

Skittles for the pubs in Bristol are vital.

Because during the week, you know,

you're bringing in sort of 30, 40 people to the pub

most nights of the week.

You know, without those people in the pubs, the pubs will die.

But we've already signed up for next season to play here

and hopefully we'll continue to play here for a long time.

Back on the trail of Bristol's seafaring past,

I'm in the central neighbourhood of Redcliffe,

and off in search of a heavenly body.

Oo-er!

There it is, the 7 Stars.

It's named after the Plough -

well, the part of the sky that even I can recognise.

Yonks ago, sailors would use that group of stars

to navigate their way at sea.

You know, it's pretty handy if you're in a force nine

in the mid-Atlantic and you think to yourself,

"Ooh, I've had enough of this. Where's the pub?"

The answer is, it's written in the stars.

This pub's been a sailors' tavern for centuries,

but it's also connected to a vicious and shameful chapter

in Bristol's maritime history.

-Steve. I'm Dave.

-Dave, how are you?

-I'm fine. Nice to meet you.

-Pleased to meet you. Can I get you a beer?

-Lovely, yeah.

'Landlord of the 7 Stars Steve Smith can tell me more.'

-There you are, my friend.

-Aw. This is very welcome.

We've been talking a lot about trade and the history

of trade within Bristol, but there's like, one abominable trade

that we haven't touched upon yet, and that's the slave trade.

It's erm.... You know, it's a big part of Bristol's history.

And Bristol made huge sums of money out of the brokerage of slaves.

I mean, the trade in human life is absolutely shocking.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the British Empire

took part in a deplorable triangular trade across the seas.

Britain shipped goods like guns and textiles to Africa,

where they were exchanged for African prisoners.

Those poor souls were then shipped to plantations in the New World

to work as slaves.

They'd be sold, and that's where we really picked up the goods

that made us the money -

you know, tobacco, molasses, sugar, and that came back to the UK.

The 7 Stars - what's its connection with the slave trade?

The pub's been here for many hundred years, but its association with

the slave trade is when a guy called Thomas Clarkson stayed here in 1787.

A great abolitionist, hated the slave trade and everything about it.

But the landlord of this very pub, a chap named Thompson, also played

a big part in this incredible story by becoming Clarkson's ally.

They were on the same wavelength.

-Thomas Clarkson, he made over 19 visits to Bristol.

-Right.

And his sole driving idea was to pick up evidence

of exactly the conditions these slaves were operating in.

You know, they needed written statements

-from sailors that'd been on the ships...

-Yes.

..and also what was used in the ships to chain the slaves -

-be it the manacles...

-Mm-hm.

-..or the chains. Atrocious conditions.

So were there some moles in the industry that were helping Thompson and Clarkson?

Oh, without a doubt. It was those contacts that they put together

over the course of his 19 visits to Bristol,

and yes, they spill the beans.

The evidence Thompson and Clarkson collected

helped make the case for the abolition of slavery.

Do you know, I think it's fantastic you can come to the 7 Stars,

have a beer, and it's in a pub that witnessed

such an important part of British history.

Here's to Thompson and Clarkson!

MUSIC: The Tide Is High by The Paragons

# The tide is high but I'm holding on...

Today, Bristol is a very different place

to the busy seaport of the 18th century,

and the slave trade a terrible memory.

But it's still a place that celebrates its positive connections

with the wider world.

Local poet and historian Dr Edson Burton

is going to fill me in on that legacy.

-Hello, Edson.

-Hi.

-Pleased to meet you.

-Good to meet you.

Do you know, I've been learning all about, you know,

the slave trade and Bristol.

You know, are modern Bristolians aware of that shameful past?

Well, yeah. Since the mid-nineties

it's kind of grown in public awareness.

It wasn't the first generation of people who came to England

-who talked about the slave trade and got to know about it...

-Right.

..it was actually the second generation, people my age, who kind of

-became aware of, "Hang on a minute, we're living in a city..."

-Yeah.

"..that's related to the slave trade."

'Edson's heritage is African-Caribbean,

'a community that thrives in Bristol today.'

How long has the African-Caribbean community been in Bristol?

Some people have thought that

-that community was descended...

-Yes.

-..straight from the slave trade, that's not the case.

Actually, the Caribbean population that's here -

-that's second, third generation now...

-Yeah.

..have all come from the Caribbean, and many of them settled in other cities -

Birmingham, Cardiff and London - and they came here because

actually they've found that there's much more diversity of work here.

But there's a real sort of cultural wind

that's come with the Caribbean community

and carnival is one of them -

an attempt to give a really positive image to the city.

Bristol's St Pauls Carnival celebrates African-Caribbean culture

and attracts tens of thousands of revellers.

If you're a Bristolian, you know,

-it's a time when people got to eat the curried goat and the jerk chicken.

-Oh, I love it. Yeah.

I think that's one thing I'm proud of the British, the way we've embraced other food cultures.

Yeah, and I think, you know, over food we get to have conversations,

get to build relationships, get to understand stuff.

Today in Bristol, you can get a bit of jerk chicken

along with a pint down the local boozers.

But Edson's passionate about another Bristolian pub pastime.

There's a really thriving poetry scene.

There's a lot of these poets have really been nurtured in pubs

and other spaces that we don't traditionally associate with poetry.

So you've got your slam poetry,

where poets go head-to-head in various rounds

and they get whittled down by the audience

who go, "Boo" or "Yay" or...

-Would that happen in pubs, a poetry slam?

-Yeah, it would.

I'll drink to that.

Come on, teach me how to become a slam poet.

Well, I thought we could have a bit of a laugh

with a poem written in Jamaican Creole.

I'll give it a go. Do we do a verse each?

So would we have like a face-off, like boxers?

'This is one of Edson's poems -

'I'd better not muck it up.'

Still dis is a land of opportunity

Come nuh, man, mek a lickle money

Build up your pocket den build up your country

But come, man, come to me

'ere de woman they fall like a pear from the tree

An all dem wan' to pick is we.

It no matter whether you're red, black or ugly

Mi know you have yu honey

But come now, man, have a lickle fun with me.

So nuh tarry book yu passage

And when yu come bring bottle a rum

Bring tale of Defreitas and John

Bring mento record

Bring piece a yam

But I beg yu, man, come!

-'Ey! That were brilliant.

-How about that?

-APPLAUSE

-Thank you!

'Come to Bristol.

'Well, I'm glad I did.

'From scrumpy-drinking sailors

'and smithing on the high seas,

'right through to the end of slavery,

'this has been a fascinating historic pub tour of the city.'

Now, before I disappear,

here's a quick question from the 7 Stars' pub quiz.

Author JK Rowling based her character Harry Potter

on a young lad she met growing up where?

If you said Bristol, give yourself a Brownie point.

If you didn't, well, it's back to school for you,

and we know that means Hogwarts.