Pylle Hill: A Living Community
The 60s were a watershed decade for Totterdown. In 1964 the sheds for the ‘real’ steam engines were demolished and Totterdown’s beloved locos went to the scrapyard. Then in 1966, Council plans to demolished for a disastrous road scheme were published. When about a third of ‘middle’ Totterdown was demolished, one side of Pylle Hill’s Oxford Street and Cheapside were demolished too. The rest of Pylle Hill remained unthreatened and received several businesses from the stricken area. These were Bushy TV relocated to Henry Street; Totterdown Motors formerly at 14-16 Wells Road, moved in 1972 to the former Phillips Bakery Shop on Henry Street, where a family had run the bakery business since the 1920s, and changed its name to Miles Motors. Nowadays it is Cabot Tyres. The ‘Action Area’ on Pylle Hill.
In 1976, 200 houses on Pylle Hill were declared to be in an Action Area by the Council and grants were made available to improve housing. This was a first attempt to lift the blight which was then plaguing Totterdown caused by the removal of 500 houses and shops, (2000 residents), following the great 1960s road planning disaster which altered the face of east Bristol. At 34 Pylle Hill Crescent a housing advice centre was provided and this also served as a venue for local groups (eg Totterdown Action Group against the second and third road plans) to meet.
Nowadays Pylle Hill is the most culturally diverse area of Totterdown. People have settled over the years from many parts of the world. The first Asian family to arrive were the Smiths, from Lahore. They had been posted to the British Embassy in Tehran and subsequently arrived on Pylle Hill in 1962. Their interest in living in the UK was to be able to practice Christianity, which had been dangerous in Pakistan. They integrated well into the local community. Later on there was a large Asian community both Christian and Moslem. The Smiths founded a dynasty of Christian Asians and second generation settler Aroona Smith set up the organisation Silai for Skills, initially in Totterdown, where Asian women learned to make traditional clothing with industrial equipment. The project has since burgeoned and moved on. In 2006 Aroona’s work was recognised by the award of an MBE.
The Pylle Hill area nowadays has a bohemian air and a strong community spirit; a musical era flourished in the 1990s when many bands which rehearsed in the solid stone cellars of No 3 Henry Street, had a large local presence, performed city-wide and then moved on. In the early 1990s local artist Nikki Alford emptied and white-washed her house in Green Street and turned it into a public gallery for her work over a weekend. This began a new Pylle Hill era of public art organised by Ros Ford and performance for the many resident artists and the flowering of the November Front Room Art Trail weekend when thirty to forty houses and pubs are filled with art and music and open to the public. Subsequently others have taken over the organisation. In 2007 it was coordinated by Przemek Szczodry, a member of the local Polish community. Houses on the hill have been in demand as people want to ‘buy in’ to a characterful area.
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