Help us tell the story of Quay Head House
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.
If you have walked across the Centre in Bristol, you have walked past Quay Head House. It is the red brick building with the curly Dutch gable on Colston Avenue, next door to the White Lion, facing the Cenotaph.
The more we look into it, the more lives it seems to have had. It was built in 1884 as offices for the city’s almshouse charity. It was squatted. It hosted a pay-what-you-like supper club by candlelight. It has spent the best part of fifteen years as The Milk Thistle, one of the country’s best known speakeasy bars, and now there is a gin still in the attic too.
What we do not have is the bit in between. Between 1938, when the charity moved out, and 2009, when the squatters were in, we can account for almost nothing, apart from one set of photos from the mid 2000s. Somebody worked at those desks. Somebody locked up for the last time. Somebody climbed in through a window.
What we are looking for
Anything at all. Photos of the outside in any decade, even if the building is just in the background of a wedding or a parade. Photos of the inside. Letters on headed paper with the Quay Head House address. Memories of working here, drinking here, sleeping here. Stories you heard from a relative. Even a half-remembered rumour can point us in the right direction.
Share a photo or memory. It takes a few minutes, and you choose whether we publish it and how you are credited.