Bristol Municipal Charities (1884 to 1938)
Easter 1906: the earliest photograph
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.
Over the hot, dry Easter of 1906, a photographer commissioned by Bristol Municipal Charities walked the streets of Bristol with a camera. His job was to record every property the trustees looked after: almshouses, shops, warehouses, pubs. Quay Head House, the charity’s own head office, was one of them.
His print is now in Bristol Archives, mounted in one of the charity’s photograph albums. It is the earliest photograph of the building we have found.
What it shows
The building is 22 years old and looks it: crisp brickwork, sharp mouldings, and a flag flying from the pole on top of the central gable. To the left is the White Lion Hotel, taller and plainer. In front are the railings of Magpie Park, laid out only thirteen years earlier on top of the old river. A man in a bowler hat stands in the foreground, either waiting for someone or watching the photographer at work.
Look closely and almost every detail of today’s front is already there: the doorway on the left with its curved pediment, the four arched windows beside it, the five tall windows above, the balustrade with its urns, the two little domed dormers and the tall chimneys at each end.
Then and now
Put the 1906 photograph next to one from 2026 and the front has barely changed in 120 years. The biggest difference is around it: the park railings and gas lamps have gone, the road has been widened, and the neighbouring buildings have been rebuilt. Use the slider on our homepage to compare them for yourself.
More from the 1906 survey
The whole set of the charity’s 1906 photographs was published in 1997 as Charity on Camera in Edwardian Bristol by Kieran Costello, which places each picture in context. It is still available, and it is a wonderful record of the city at the time.
Have you got a photo of the building from before 1938? Send it in.
Sources: Bristol Archives, St Stephen’s Street, 1906, ref. 33041/BMC/12/1/b/40; Kieran Costello, Charity on Camera in Edwardian Bristol (Breedon Books, 1997)