Features / lockleaze
Purdown Percy and BT Tower: A Lockleaze love affair
When it comes to listing landmark Bristol structures, you’d be pushed not to think of the Purdown telecoms tower standing tall on the horizon.
With Lockleaze in its shadow, this harsh concrete structure stands in brutal domination over the natural beauty of the Stoke Park Estate.
For many locals, however, the tower is part of the architecture they have come to love and admire. It’s a pinpoint of the oh-so-often-forgotten estate, a reminder to the M32 passers-by that there’s more to Bristol than beautiful balloons, Brunel’s bridges and Banksy. It’s a recognition that ‘yes, we’ve also got something’, even if its modernist cups-and-saucer design is not exactly to everyone’s modern taste.
is needed now More than ever
The BT-owned telecommunications tower stands just over 70 metres tall, and was built in the 1970s to house a number of radio and microwave communication systems.
For nine years prior to the erection of the tower as we know it today, a steel-lattice tower stood temporarily in preparation for the imminent BT microwave network and, for a short while, both stood side by side in telecom-matrimony.
However the 1970s’ lust for concrete design swiftly saw the adapted “Chilterns type” tower take its place, unaccompanied on the Purdown ridge, up until the present day.
The current tower is just one of the 14 reinforced concrete towers found across the UK, built to carry television and telephone circuits over long distances when the surge in broadcast requirements could no longer be managed by cable. Stripped of much of its need since the fibre age, with many of its redundant dishes removed in 2008, the tower still has its place in FM and DAB radio broadcast and mobile phone networks, for now at least.
Speculation has it that these systems were also used for military and spying purposes during the Cold War, theorised somewhat by both the timing of its erection and the lack of aircraft warning light attached to such a tall structure, though research suggests these Cold War military links are unlikely.
Nevertheless, it is thought to have been installed with a Cold War early warning alarm system to warn of imminent attack; that four minute warning, however, wouldn’t allow for a decent brew in a Lockleazean’s books, even if the local name tag suggested otherwise.
Many do not realise that it’s not standing solo up there on the Purdown ridge. Without much need to don your walking boots for a light stroll along Sir Johns Lane and past the looming transmitter tower, you’d quite quickly stumble upon a second lesser-known local landmark; Purdown Percy.
This listed World War II gun battery housed an array of 3.7” heavy anti-aircraft guns in the 1940s, protecting Bristol from incoming bombing raids from this high vantage point on the north entrance to the city.
The battery has had no real official use since 1945, and has become heavily overgrown over the decades. This scheduled monument is listed on the Historic England Heritage at-risk register.
However, the crumbling structures haven’t simply been ignored and lost with history. In fact, with a Marmite opinion towards its metamorphosis, these crumbling concrete bunkers, magazines and gun mounts have been unofficially transformed. Across social media, you can often find the spot nicknamed “the Purdown outdoor gallery” with the ever-changing graffiti art pieces bringing, for some, a welcome splash of colour to the grey backdrop.
Purdown Percy and the gun emplacements have been derelict since 1945. It has become nicknamed by some as the Purdown Outdoor Art Gallery – photo: Anne-Louise Perez.
Others have spent their years clambering and bouldering amongst the ruins, with the ammunition stores and below ground command posts doubling up as a well-loved urban playground (no swings attached). A hide-and-seek heaven for all those willing to delve into these dark and damp structures, often showing the remnants of a summer party gone by.
The space has been adopted as a friendly goat enclosure by Street Goat too. The urban goat farming project has become an attraction in itself for local Lockleaze and Bristol families alike. The team of goats work on removing the invasive scrub across the site, whilst local people collectively manage and care for livestock to produce milk, fibre and meat.
Goats graze around the barracks to manage the scrub invasion, whilst Street Goat utilise the urban land for farming practices – photo: Street Goat
While Lockleaze may not be recognised as a place brimming with Bristol landmarks, even more so since the demolition of the burnt-out derelict pub on Gainsborough Square, it is in fact brimming with wonderful memories of Purdown Percy and the telecoms tower on ‘that hill by the M32’.
These unique sites have always been a favourite haunt for local youngsters and explorers alike.
While this historic environment may be seen as ‘at-risk’ and worthy of a consultation for its future, maybe for the locals, these unique landmarks are part of their own heritage. Perhaps they should continue to transform organically with the times as they have done for decades. Maybe they should be left, just is.
Now time for tea. Anyone got some cups and saucers?
Emily Shimell is reporting on Lockleaze as part of Bristol24/7’s community reporter scheme, a project which aims to tell stories from areas of Bristol traditionally under-served by the mainstream media
Main photo: Emily Shimmell
Read next:
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
