Quay Head House has been a charity’s head office, rented offices, a restaurant, an empty shell, a squat, a secret supper club, a speakeasy and now a gin distillery. We are piecing its history together. If you have a photo, a memory or a rumour, we would love to hear it.
The earliest known photograph of the building, taken for the charity over Easter 1906, beside the same view in 2026. Drag the handle to compare. Almost nothing on the front has changed in 120 years.
The story of the 1906 photograph
1906: Bristol Archives, ref. 33041/BMC/12/1/b/40, Photograph out of copyright; reproduced at low resolution from the Bristol Archives online catalogue. 2026: Tadeusz Hare, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Seventy-one years, and old newspapers have started to fill them in: estate agents from 1959, a bank, a building society, engineers, then restaurants from 1998 and a squat by 2010. The 1940s, the 1950s and the 1990s are still almost blank. If you know, you know more than we do.
Help fill the gapThe missing years (1938 to 2009)
For years we knew almost nothing about who used Quay Head House after 1938. Seven hundred old newspaper adverts have changed that.
Bristol Municipal Charities (1884 to 1938)
Over a hot, dry Easter in 1906, a photographer walked Bristol recording every property the charity owned. His picture of Quay Head House is the oldest we know of.
One of the most interesting buildings in central Bristol, and we know surprisingly little about it. Here is what we have found, and where you come in.
This wall fills up with the photos and memories people send in. Be one of the first.
Share a photo or memoryAn office job, a night out, a sleeping bag on the floor, a photo in a family album. Whatever your connection, it belongs in the archive.
Takes about five minutes. You choose if and how it is published.
