Patrons will please note that I intend to archive this cache,
and this series, as of midnight on 4th April 2011. After a year (or
more) of the TCIB series, I want to make the centre of Bristol
available for old hands and newcomers alike to lay new and
interesting caches, hopefully creating a more rapidly changing
caching environment with all the fun that entails! You have three
months advance warning to a) find any in this series you want to
log, and b) plan those caches you've been dying to lay but couldn't
find a gap!
I've immensely enjoyed setting this series, have learned a
lot, and have been overjoyed by your enthusiastic responses to my
first offerings. Thank you to you all.
Oh, and don't worry - you haven't heard the last of me and my
caches... 
When one Captain Hawkins retired from service in or about 1664,
he took on the dockside inn at No. 5 King Street and called it The
Llandogo, probably naming it for an association with the Welsh
village of Llandogo on the River Wye, just north of Botany Bay and
Barbadoes (no, really!) By 1775, the inn was being listed as
The Llandoger Trow, a name unique amongst inns; a trow being a
flat-bottomed boat which traded from Welsh Back up the Wye Valley,
further confirming the naming association.
The half-timbered work is characteristic of the buildings of the
Tudor and Stuart periods, with overhanging eaves, splendid studded
twelve-panelled doors, and projecting gables. Inside the buildings
are awash with original features: the seventeenth-century oak
stairs, the fine Georgian pine panelling, Delft tiles and plaster
work are admirable, and the ceilings are amongst some of the most
ornate in Bristol.
The development of the Marsh area began in 1663 when King Street
was laid against the South side of the city wall. Millard's map of
1673 shows the rest of the Marsh being used as an area for
recreation and for pasturing sheep. The Llandoger is composed of
five timbered buildings erected between 1650 and 1665, each of four
storeys. Sadly, numbers 1 and 2 King Street were destroyed in the
Blitz of World War II; the Berni Inn chain took over numbers 3 and
4 in 1962 and incorporated them into number 5, making the Llandoger
we see today.
The Llandoger has always been an inn for sailors and seafarers.
A 1757 newspaper advertised for recruits for: "The Tyger, a
privateer, for a four month cruise. All officers, seamen, landsmen,
and others that are willing to enter on board the said privateer,
let them repair to the Sign of the Landogar Thow [sic] in King
Street, where they will meet with proper encouragement." (Exactly
what "encouragement" was proffered is not recorded...)
The Llandoger is rumoured to be the model for The Admiral Benbow
pub in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, and to have
been the place where Daniel Defoe met the inspiration for
Robinson Crusoe, one Alexander Selkirk. Selkirk had been
rescued from being marooned and brought to Bristol by Captain
Woodes Rogers who lived in Queen's Square, but there the connection
ends. Defoe is documented as meeting Selkirk in the house of Mrs.
Davies in St. James Square. Such literary and piratical
associations are not surprising though, and only add to the
mystique of this lovely building.
The area is rich with history and culture, and opposite is the
Old Duke. The pub sign, depicting Duke Ellington, tells you that
this is one of Bristol's premier live Jazz venues, and it's
possible to spend almost any evening outside the Llandoger and the
Duke soaking up the excellent jazz and the long history.
Yaarrr!
So, to the cache:
Your treasure be a quick cache-and-dash at the latitude and
longitude above. No cutlass, parrot, or wooden leg necessary!