Progress

In the centre of Bristol you discover Queen’s Square, 6 acres of lawns and trees, with an equestrian statue of William 111 in the centre gazing out over the stately Georgian homes that surround this leafy green exemplar of 18^th century urban design.

You’d be justified in believing that here was a classic example of how the British revere their past.

And you’d be wrong.

Because progress here, as everywhere, churns up the past and often discards it.

By the 1930s, progress in Bristol meant that 200 year old Queen’s Square was declared obsolete, pointless, irrelevant.

The historic houses at the Square’s corners were demolished to make way for a dual carriageway (a 4 lane roadway) running straight through the centre of the Square. Out with the statue! Forget the lawns! The future must be served.

At one point 1,200 buses a day used the four streets along the perimeter of the square to access downtown Bristol, because the British are just as susceptible to the clarion call of progress as anybody.

Then a new wind blew. In 1993 it was decided that perhaps the original 1699 ideal for the Square had merit, and restoration of the Square to its original configuration was approved and completed in 2000. The statue was reinstated, trees at the corners where the roadway had run were replaced, bus routes rerouted, historic buildings along its perimeter restored and rebuilt, most converted to elegant office spaces and this beautiful once-public space was once again returned to the public.

It is, like any big greenspace in any big city, magical, restorative, beneficial.

It feels ancient again, as if its spirit had merely gone to sleep, waiting to be reawakened.

I walk through it nearly every day.

Families play here on the broad lawns, brides come to have their pictures taken, small children toddle around William’s statue, chasing pigeons, and thousands of people a day hurry through on their way to work, to class, to a meeting, to get home.

It is one of my favourite places in Bristol.