This is Bristol --
ONE thing that most Bristolians know is that Air Balloon Hill in St George is named after an early balloon flight. It is not something which would excite anyone these days but it does commemorate an important event in Bristol's rich ballooning heritage.
The Montgolfier brothers' first balloon ascents in France in the early 1780s caused huge excitement around Europe – and, naturally, a certain amount of rivalry in Britain.
A small, tethered balloon was displayed in King Street in January 1784. And a few days later Dr Caleb Parry launched a hydrogen-filled balloon not much bigger than a modern-day kid's balloon from the Royal Crescent Gardens in Bath. It landed in Wells.
A few weeks later, James Dinwiddie arrived in Bath with a balloon which he was touring around the country. It was on show in the city for a week before it was launched.
It landed ten miles away in what was then Kingswood, at a place which afterwards would bear the name Air Balloon Hill.
Dinwiddie came to Bristol and launched a balloon near Stokes Croft. This got as far as Hilperton, near Trowbridge.
In 1784, the first English manned flight took off from London. But the following year, Joseph Deeker, the 18-year-old son of balloon seller James Deeker, chose Bristol for his first manned flight, provided he could sell at least £160 worth of tickets to spectators to cover his costs.
The flight from Bristol did not take place until April 19, 1786. It was from a field in St Philips where Little Avon Street is nowadays.
It caused huge excitement – not just in Bristol but across the region. One newspaper reported: "The county of Somerset and all the parts adjacent seemed to be emptied of their inhabitants into this city, which perhaps never exhibited so incredible a concourse of people."
Some people travelled for 60 miles to witness the feat, while horses and coaches were being hired out in Bath at extortionate rates.
The same journalist wrote: "The best of the joke was that the thousands who marched hither from Bath marched back again with like rapidity, as the balloon bent its way to Lansdown."
Deeker made his flight in a strong wind, and had a rough landing near Chippenham. But he had covered the distance in just over an hour.
When he returned to Bristol his carriage was pulled through the streets by enthusiastic crowds.
The city went mad for everything associated with balloons and ballooning. John Weeks, landlord of the famous Bush Tavern in Corn Street, started a coach service, which he named the Balloon Coach, to London.
Bristol saw similar enthusiasm in 1810 when James Sadler, a famous pioneering balloonist, took off in a hydrogen balloon from Stokes Croft, accompanied by Bristol chemist William Clayfield, who was presumably along for the ride for helping produce the vast amount of hydrogen needed by the huge green-and-purple silk balloon.
We are told that the hydrogen was made by placing three tons of iron filings in 25 large casks, along with sulphuric acid. The balloon rose, the spectators cheered, cannon were fired in salute – and to complete the spectacle, Sadler dropped a cat on a parachute.
The hapless moggy landed safely and was adopted by a local doctor who named it Balloon.
Sadler and Clayfield floated off across the Bristol Channel towards Cardiff, were blown back towards the English side, and then back towards Wales again. They zigzagged their way until touching down four miles off the north coast of Devon. They were rescued by a boat from Lynmouth.
Producing hydrogen involved a huge amount of expense and trouble. But with the arrival of coal gas, used to light the city's streets and homes, and later used for cooking, ballooning became cheaper.
In the 19th century, balloons taking off from near the gasworks on Canons Marsh were not an uncommon sight. One flight from St Philips gasworks reached a height of two-and-a-half miles.
Schoolmaster George Pocock, who is best remembered for his charvolant kite-powered carriage, would launch hot-air balloons to educate his pupils.
He also launched one when work was started on the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
Pocock also invented a machine for caning naughty schoolboys. This was not because he was sadistic but to ensure that punishment would be administered fairly, rationally and without anger.
Balloon ascents and even the occasional balloon ride became a regular feature of big events in Bristol in the 19th century.
Balloon ascents often took place from Clifton Zoological Gardens at a time when the zoo was as much a pleasure garden as a place of education.
In 1881, Fishponds held its annual garden fete, known as Ye Olden Fayre, in the grounds of the vicarage.
The big attraction here was Captain JA Whelan of the United Kingdom Balloon Society and his massive balloon The Duke of Edinburgh.
Inflated with coal gas, the balloon was tethered and rose to 100ft, carrying passengers who had each paid half a crown (12.5p). It rose up and was pulled down again all afternoon to take the eager sightseers up. But the queue was so long that many people were disappointed.
By the late 19th century, watching other people go up in balloons or paying a lot of money for the chance to rise up 100ft was getting a bit stale. What the public craved was spectacle.
And they got it. Where once cats – or sometimes rabbits – had been dropped from the basket by parachute, now it was daredevil performers making parachute jumps.
In the summer of 1889, an American daredevil styling himself Professor Williams was the talk of Bristol.
He made a leap from his hot-air balloon at the Avonmouth Gardens from 5,000ft, and was also at the opening of the new Chequers Pleasure Grounds at Hanham on July 21, 1889.
It was not too long before Britain had her own homegrown stuntmen.
In October 1894, Stanley Spencer, from a famous family of London balloon manufacturers, was due to make a parachute descent from his balloon at the Hornets Football Ground in Horfield.
The weather was not good, however.
Rain added weight to his hot-air balloon and it started to come down again when it had barely reached 200ft.
The basket skimmed along the tops of trees and roofs – and when it hit the top of a house, Spencer decided he was better off getting out.
He returned to the ground via one of the upper windows of the house with several cuts and bruises and was taken to the infirmary.
A week later, his brother Percival, also an experienced parachutist, did the crowd proud.
At 5pm his balloon rose and disappeared from view.
Percival Spencer took his leap at 3,500ft and the crowds could soon see him as he descended – happily waving his cap – to land at the County Ground a short distance away.
Percival Spencer was back in Bristol nine years later to pilot the Reverend JM Bacon on a scientific trip to take air samples.
They took off from the close of Clifton College – and the reverend told the Daily Mail that from 3,000ft the suspension bridge looked like "a slender spider's web."
This was only one of a large number of scientific ascents carried out by Bacon and Spencer around the country at the turn of the century.
Sometimes they were accompanied on these ascents by Bacon's daughter Gertrude.
Around the time of the Boer War the pair carried out work evaluating the use of balloons for military purposes.
There were Victorian ballooning tragedies, too. In 1881, the Saladin – piloted by Captain James Templer – carried Cheltenham MP James Agg-Gardner and Malmesbury MP Walter Powell.
The balloon took off from Bath gasworks and flew towards the Dorset coast, where Templer tried to land it.
But the grappling anchor would not hold and the pilot scrambled out, urging his companions to follow.
Agg-Gardner jumped out and broke his leg, but Powell hesitated.
Templer held on to the rope until his hand was cut to the bone, and the balloon was blown away. No trace of it, or of Walter Powell, was seen again.
Ballooning as a sport and spectacle went into relative decline in the 20th century.
You will find scant mention of ballooning in the local press from the First World War until the 1960s.
The story of modern ballooning in Britain does not really resume until the late 1960s – but Bristol is at the centre of it.
This was when some members of Bristol Gliding Club decided to follow the example of American balloonist Ed Yost and make their own balloon.
The Bristol Belle first flew successfully on July 9, 1967.
One of its makers was a young aero engineer named Don Cameron. He went on to start a successful balloon-manufacturing company and flew several pioneering flights of his own.
In 1979, he was instrumental in starting the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta.
You know the rest. Reported by This is 6 hours ago.
ONE thing that most Bristolians know is that Air Balloon Hill in St George is named after an early balloon flight. It is not something which would excite anyone these days but it does commemorate an important event in Bristol's rich ballooning heritage.
The Montgolfier brothers' first balloon ascents in France in the early 1780s caused huge excitement around Europe – and, naturally, a certain amount of rivalry in Britain.
A small, tethered balloon was displayed in King Street in January 1784. And a few days later Dr Caleb Parry launched a hydrogen-filled balloon not much bigger than a modern-day kid's balloon from the Royal Crescent Gardens in Bath. It landed in Wells.
A few weeks later, James Dinwiddie arrived in Bath with a balloon which he was touring around the country. It was on show in the city for a week before it was launched.
It landed ten miles away in what was then Kingswood, at a place which afterwards would bear the name Air Balloon Hill.
Dinwiddie came to Bristol and launched a balloon near Stokes Croft. This got as far as Hilperton, near Trowbridge.
In 1784, the first English manned flight took off from London. But the following year, Joseph Deeker, the 18-year-old son of balloon seller James Deeker, chose Bristol for his first manned flight, provided he could sell at least £160 worth of tickets to spectators to cover his costs.
The flight from Bristol did not take place until April 19, 1786. It was from a field in St Philips where Little Avon Street is nowadays.
It caused huge excitement – not just in Bristol but across the region. One newspaper reported: "The county of Somerset and all the parts adjacent seemed to be emptied of their inhabitants into this city, which perhaps never exhibited so incredible a concourse of people."
Some people travelled for 60 miles to witness the feat, while horses and coaches were being hired out in Bath at extortionate rates.
The same journalist wrote: "The best of the joke was that the thousands who marched hither from Bath marched back again with like rapidity, as the balloon bent its way to Lansdown."
Deeker made his flight in a strong wind, and had a rough landing near Chippenham. But he had covered the distance in just over an hour.
When he returned to Bristol his carriage was pulled through the streets by enthusiastic crowds.
The city went mad for everything associated with balloons and ballooning. John Weeks, landlord of the famous Bush Tavern in Corn Street, started a coach service, which he named the Balloon Coach, to London.
Bristol saw similar enthusiasm in 1810 when James Sadler, a famous pioneering balloonist, took off in a hydrogen balloon from Stokes Croft, accompanied by Bristol chemist William Clayfield, who was presumably along for the ride for helping produce the vast amount of hydrogen needed by the huge green-and-purple silk balloon.
We are told that the hydrogen was made by placing three tons of iron filings in 25 large casks, along with sulphuric acid. The balloon rose, the spectators cheered, cannon were fired in salute – and to complete the spectacle, Sadler dropped a cat on a parachute.
The hapless moggy landed safely and was adopted by a local doctor who named it Balloon.
Sadler and Clayfield floated off across the Bristol Channel towards Cardiff, were blown back towards the English side, and then back towards Wales again. They zigzagged their way until touching down four miles off the north coast of Devon. They were rescued by a boat from Lynmouth.
Producing hydrogen involved a huge amount of expense and trouble. But with the arrival of coal gas, used to light the city's streets and homes, and later used for cooking, ballooning became cheaper.
In the 19th century, balloons taking off from near the gasworks on Canons Marsh were not an uncommon sight. One flight from St Philips gasworks reached a height of two-and-a-half miles.
Schoolmaster George Pocock, who is best remembered for his charvolant kite-powered carriage, would launch hot-air balloons to educate his pupils.
He also launched one when work was started on the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
Pocock also invented a machine for caning naughty schoolboys. This was not because he was sadistic but to ensure that punishment would be administered fairly, rationally and without anger.
Balloon ascents and even the occasional balloon ride became a regular feature of big events in Bristol in the 19th century.
Balloon ascents often took place from Clifton Zoological Gardens at a time when the zoo was as much a pleasure garden as a place of education.
In 1881, Fishponds held its annual garden fete, known as Ye Olden Fayre, in the grounds of the vicarage.
The big attraction here was Captain JA Whelan of the United Kingdom Balloon Society and his massive balloon The Duke of Edinburgh.
Inflated with coal gas, the balloon was tethered and rose to 100ft, carrying passengers who had each paid half a crown (12.5p). It rose up and was pulled down again all afternoon to take the eager sightseers up. But the queue was so long that many people were disappointed.
By the late 19th century, watching other people go up in balloons or paying a lot of money for the chance to rise up 100ft was getting a bit stale. What the public craved was spectacle.
And they got it. Where once cats – or sometimes rabbits – had been dropped from the basket by parachute, now it was daredevil performers making parachute jumps.
In the summer of 1889, an American daredevil styling himself Professor Williams was the talk of Bristol.
He made a leap from his hot-air balloon at the Avonmouth Gardens from 5,000ft, and was also at the opening of the new Chequers Pleasure Grounds at Hanham on July 21, 1889.
It was not too long before Britain had her own homegrown stuntmen.
In October 1894, Stanley Spencer, from a famous family of London balloon manufacturers, was due to make a parachute descent from his balloon at the Hornets Football Ground in Horfield.
The weather was not good, however.
Rain added weight to his hot-air balloon and it started to come down again when it had barely reached 200ft.
The basket skimmed along the tops of trees and roofs – and when it hit the top of a house, Spencer decided he was better off getting out.
He returned to the ground via one of the upper windows of the house with several cuts and bruises and was taken to the infirmary.
A week later, his brother Percival, also an experienced parachutist, did the crowd proud.
At 5pm his balloon rose and disappeared from view.
Percival Spencer took his leap at 3,500ft and the crowds could soon see him as he descended – happily waving his cap – to land at the County Ground a short distance away.
Percival Spencer was back in Bristol nine years later to pilot the Reverend JM Bacon on a scientific trip to take air samples.
They took off from the close of Clifton College – and the reverend told the Daily Mail that from 3,000ft the suspension bridge looked like "a slender spider's web."
This was only one of a large number of scientific ascents carried out by Bacon and Spencer around the country at the turn of the century.
Sometimes they were accompanied on these ascents by Bacon's daughter Gertrude.
Around the time of the Boer War the pair carried out work evaluating the use of balloons for military purposes.
There were Victorian ballooning tragedies, too. In 1881, the Saladin – piloted by Captain James Templer – carried Cheltenham MP James Agg-Gardner and Malmesbury MP Walter Powell.
The balloon took off from Bath gasworks and flew towards the Dorset coast, where Templer tried to land it.
But the grappling anchor would not hold and the pilot scrambled out, urging his companions to follow.
Agg-Gardner jumped out and broke his leg, but Powell hesitated.
Templer held on to the rope until his hand was cut to the bone, and the balloon was blown away. No trace of it, or of Walter Powell, was seen again.
Ballooning as a sport and spectacle went into relative decline in the 20th century.
You will find scant mention of ballooning in the local press from the First World War until the 1960s.
The story of modern ballooning in Britain does not really resume until the late 1960s – but Bristol is at the centre of it.
This was when some members of Bristol Gliding Club decided to follow the example of American balloonist Ed Yost and make their own balloon.
The Bristol Belle first flew successfully on July 9, 1967.
One of its makers was a young aero engineer named Don Cameron. He went on to start a successful balloon-manufacturing company and flew several pioneering flights of his own.
In 1979, he was instrumental in starting the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta.
You know the rest. Reported by This is 6 hours ago.