Portland Square Multi-Cache
Graculus: As the owner has not responded to my colleagues previous log requesting that they check this cache I am archiving it.
Regards
Chris
Graculus - Volunteer UK Reviewer www.geocaching.com
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This is one of a series of urban caches that I will be using as an opportunity to relay some of Bristol’s fascinating history.
At the end of the eighteenth century Bristol was England’s second city, an important seaport and with a swelling urban population as a result of the Industrial Revolution. A 1787 Act of Parliament approved the creation of the parish of St Pauls on 7 acres of market gardening land known as Barr’s Leaze. The land was owned by the Dean and Chapter of Bristol, John Cave (an oil colour merchant) and William Pritchard (from Ross on Wye) – the latter two eventually having streets named after them.
The architect, whose identity is a matter of dispute, designed both St Paul’s Church and the surrounding square, which was named after the Duke of Portland, High Steward of Bristol at the time. The classical square had by this time become a fashionable and exclusive form of urban development and by 1750 Bristol had 5 such squares, more than any other provisional town. St Paul’s church was consecrated in 1794, having been partly funded from the royal pension of Thomas Dunckerley, an illegitimate son of the previous monarch King George II, and Portland Square itself was completed and fully occupied by 1825. The garden would have looked much as it does today, although the newly planted trees would have provided clear views across to the church.
The first residents were professional merchants, attorneys, surgeons, physicians, clergyman and bankers and by 1861 there were 58 children living in the square. Eventually however, the prosperous residents drifted to the new Georgian suburb of Clifton, and by the end of the century almost every house in the square been turned to industrial use, principally at first shoe and boot manufacture. One of the most successful businesses was the English Corrugating Paper Company Ltd whose premises were destroyed, along with the whole of Dean Street, by bombing on the 2nd December 1940.
After World War II the square continued to be a light industrial area although war damage and neglect gave it an increasingly forlorn air. Restoration began in earnest at the end of the century, and St Paul’s church, which held its last service in 1988, was restored as a venue for community arts and a centre of excellence for circus (one of the original bells has found a new home at the church of St John’s in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales). The square is now used to house office workers and, once again, residents.
To get to the cache, you'll need to determine the following:
- You can drink in what was once a coal bunker at No. AB.
- There are C trees inside the garden path.
- There are DE benches inside the garden.
- Gissus a Job at No. F.
- Edward W Godwin lived at No. 21 for G years.
The cache (which is a nano) is within the Square at:
N51 2(F).(A+G)(B)(E+A) W02 3(C-A).(D)(F-G)(C)
N.B. A primary reference for the above history is Bette Burke's "Cinderalla Square (The History of Portland Square)" published in 2004 by B.R.B. Publications with ISBN 9780954830601.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Haqrpvqrq.
Treasures
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