People / My Bristol Favourites
My Bristol Favourites: Andrew Lynch
Journalist Andrew Lynch is the founder of Just About Books, a new series of conversations with authors starting on February 20 with tech entrepreneur Nigel Toon talking about AI.
Andrew joined the Bristol Evening Post as a reporter after graduating from Bristol Polytechnic. He then worked across Fleet Street including editing the business section of the Sunday Times and later edited a daily newspaper in Hong Kong.
He is now assistant editor of Business Leader magazine and lives in Hotwells with his springer spaniel, Archie, and two of his three grown-up sons: Joe, who is in logistics, and George, a Muay Thai boxer who runs Combat Warriors gym in Easton.
is needed now More than ever
These are Andrew’s top-five Bristol favourites:
The Architect
The Architect on Narrow Quay is a cafe by day and a continental-style bar by night – photo: Design West
“After three decades living here – I have also spent 10 years in Hong Kong – it’s probably only in the past few years of enforced idleness that I have come to enjoy Bristol. Working on London newspapers (at night on dailies, and on Friday and Saturday nights as a Sunday journalist) does nothing for your social life. During lockdown, my friend, the architect Nick Childs, told me over too many glasses of claret on my patio of a new bar that Design West (formerly the Architecture Centre) was going to house on Narrow Quay. And I have been going to The Architect ever since. I love the staff and I remain in constant awe of the Design West boss, the brilliant Dr Anna Rutherford. There is a plaque on the bar to my late wife Sara Hamilton, who was an architect, and my dog Archie has his own bowl. They buy in my favourite apero, Pineau des Charentes. Their wholesaler told deputy manager Aurea that the bar was their number one outlet for Pineau in the whole of the UK. “But we only have one guy who drinks it,” she replied.
Watershed
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“Watershed is somewhere I could not do without. The films of the past year, especially Anatomy of a Fall, have been outstanding. And The Taste of Things starts this week. No week is complete without Juliette Binoche! I was there when Watershed opened more than 40 years ago and occasionally caroused with broadcast legend Andy Batten-Foster and the late David Pritchard, who directed Keith Floyd in the early days and Rick Stein after that. I am planning a Floyd festival in the second week of September to celebrate the life of Bristol’s greatest cook with help from those who knew him such as George Ferguson and John Miles, as well as chef Josh Eggleton of the Pony & Trap fame. Now that I am working again, I need to make a voyage of discovery around Bristol’s wonderful restaurants.”
The Mount Without
The Mount Without was rebuilt following extensive fire damage in 2016 – photo: The Mount Without
“I was shellshocked by the beauty of what Norman Routledge has done with the Mount Without, the former St Michael on the Mount Without church at the foot of St Michael’s Hill. I can’t recall when I first went – probably for a Bristol Civic Society talk – but I do remember just sitting in awe looking at the ceiling. A magnificent deed in the current depressing world of Bristol’s built environment.”
Ashton Court
The sun rises over Ashton Court – photo: Betty Woolerton
“My memories of Ashton Court go back to the late 1970s when I came to visit my friend, the artist-designer and now stand-up comedian Walter Jack, at the Poly in Bower Ashton. That was when I decided to move to Bristol. When my wife acquired two spaniels I came to know the grounds quite well. It was our quiet place – apart from barking at the dogs.”
Freeland Place
Freeland Place features a row of Georgian townhouses – photo: Andrew Lynch
“This is where I live in Hotwells. In the Regency house used to film A Day in the Death of Joe Egg with Alan Bates and Janet Suzman, although the playwright Peter Nichols thought it much too posh for Bri and Sheila. Bristol drama still has so much going for it. But back in the 1960s there was Nichols, Tom Stoppard (up in the Paragon, crashing with ACH Smith) and Charles Wood. What a hotbed the Bristol newspapers were then – and with Keith Floyd a reporter too! The house has been our family home for more than 20 years. During lockdown, I finally learnt to enjoy living here, learning to try to cook. Freeland Place is a warm, tight-knit community; once you’ve been here 20 years, it’s fine! In the sunlight, according to Pevsner, it is reminiscent of Tuscany. I should go and check if that’s true.”
Main photo: Andrew Lynch
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