People / My Bristol Favourites
My Bristol Favourites: Kirsty Sedgman
Dr Kirsty Sedgman is a senior lecturer at the University of Bristol researching audiences, culture, communication and human behaviour.
Kirsty’s most recent book, On Being Unreasonable, was described in the Guardian as “a bracing manifesto” and named among their best ideas books of 2023.
These are Kirsty’s top-five Bristol favouites:
is needed now More than ever
The Wickham Theatre
The Wickham Theatre is named after professor Glynne Wickham, who was founder of the department of theatre studies at Bristol, the first university theatre department in the UK – photo: Martin Booth
“Housing the University of Bristol’s Department of Theatre (née Drama) since 1947 and named after Glynne Wickham, the founder of theatre studies as a university discipline in the UK, the Wickham Theatre is the working theatre building in which I teach. To me, walking in every morning is like coming home. Sure it can be a cantankerous old beast, temperamental with the heating and featuring the occasional bird roosting in the rafters, but the Wickham is one of the great loves of my life and I wouldn’t have it any other way (aside from perhaps a smidgen fewer leaks).”
Toyville
The first Toyville opened in 2016 and now has two shops on North Street – photo: Martin Booth
“With two premises on North Street – one bursting with toys and one focusing particularly on board games – I’m constantly popping into Toyville for something or other with my two boys. My friend Lucy Rees is the assistant manager and is an excellent enabler, always able to suggest something new that the kids will love and that will bring me one step closer to bankruptcy. She also knows absolutely everyone by name (she’s a lot friendlier than I am).”
Sweven
Sweven is located on the corner of North Street and Merrywood Road, with its roastery in Long Ashton – photo: Martin Booth
“Just across the road from Toyville, on the other side of North Street, Sweven serves what I firmly believe to be the absolute best coffee in Bristol – and I’ve tried a lot of Bristol coffee shops. I love Sweven so much that I even mentioned them in the acknowledgements to my book; I truly believe that I wouldn’t have made it through the Covid lockdowns without them.”
The Mirror Maze
Follow Me by Danish artist Jeppe Hein was commissioned to mark the centenary of the University of Bristol in 2019 – photo: Jamie Woodley
“Back up at the university sits my favourite green space in Bristol, Royal Fort Gardens. Created by the artist Jeppe Hein, the mirror-maze installation (its proper title is Follow Me) crouches at the bottom of the hill like a strange sculptural jewellery box, inviting you to wander around inside looking at all the different versions of yourself and at the dappled light refracted back into the surrounding trees. It’s weird; I love it.”
Gaol Ferry Bridge
“The couple of years it took for them to fix the cast-iron pedestrian bridge spanning Southville and Wapping Wharf were just rubbish, weren’t they? You had to traipse all the way down to Asda and back up again just to get to the harbourside. Urgh. Now back open following a mega-party at the Wharf, and proudly sporting a fresh coat of cream and burgundy paint, it’s lovely to have my favourite bridge in the city back again. Yes, that even includes you, Suspension Bridge.”
Main photo: Gareth Iwan Jones
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