News / Cary Grant
New plaque remembers Cary Grant’s happiest childhood home
Three-year-old Willow Johnson is the same age as Archibald Leach was when he lived at 50 Berkeley Road in Bishopston.
It was just one of around half a dozen houses in which the Leach family lived in Horfield, Montpelier, Ashley Down, Cotham and St Paul’s but it was here between 1907 and 1909 that the actor who became Hollywood film star Cary Grant said he was at his most happy.
Willow’s grandparents Anne and Keith now live in the house, which on Friday morning had a blue plaque officially unveiled above its front door to remember its famous former resident.
is needed now More than ever
View this post on Instagram
Willow had travelled to the plaque unveiling from her home in Brighton with her mum, Lauren, a historian who grew up in the house from when she was a similar age as her daughter.
It was only a decade or so after they moved into their new home in 1986 that a neighbour across the road told Anne and Keith that the man who would become arguably the most famous Bristolian of all time had once resided there.
Anne said that she has often wondered what part of the house the young Archie would have lived in as his family were lodgers.
“But most importantly, it’s knowing that he was happy living here,” she told Bristol24/7.
“We think it’s a really happy family home and we’re glad that of all the places he lived in Bristol, this is maybe where he was happiest.”
Keith and Anne Johnson have lived at 50 Berkeley Road for almost 40 years – photo: Martin Booth
Ahead of the Historic England blue plaque unveiling by Chris Bryant, minister for creative industries, arts & tourism, UWE Bristol’s Charlotte Crofts spoke about Cary Grant.
Charlotte is a professor of cinema arts at UWE and the co-founder of the Cary Comes Home festival, which is taking place at the Bristol Megascreen and the Spiegeltent from November 29 to December 1, which includes two walks following in Archie and Cary’s footsteps with Show of Strength.
Archie Leach pictured here in around 1910, went to Bishop Road Primary School, and won a scholarship to and was later expelled from the former Fairfield Grammar School in Montpelier – photo courtesy of Oxford University Press
“It’s such an honour that Cary Grant is being recognised nationally by Historic England,” Charlotte said.
“I love the idea of thinking him as a little three-year-old boy, roughly the age of Willow.
“He had happy memories of his parents when he lived here and he really remembered it as a positive time in his life…
“To honour him with a plaque here today is so special.
“It’s a recognition of the small boy who started here and worked really hard, dreaming of sailing away on the tides of imagination, and he became Cary Grant.”
Dozens of guests attended the plaque unveiling – photo: Martin Booth
This plaque at 50 Berkeley Road is the second blue plaque remembering one of Cary Grant’s former homes in Bristol, with the other at 15 Hughenden Road near Horfield Common where he was born in 1904.
A plaque remembering Cary Grant outside his first home on Hughenden Road in Horfield – photo: Martin Booth
Research by his biographer Mark Glancy has revealed that the Leach family moved from Hughenden Road to Berkeley Road and then to 132 Cheltenham Road (living above what is now the Social bar), 5 Seymour Avenue in Ashley Down, 137 Cotham Brow in Cotham and 12 Campbell Street in St Paul’s.
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read next:
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
