Great Western Coffee Shop

I can across a picture online of 1001 at "Montpelier" junction yesterday and wondered if third rail had come to Bristol, but Google sent me to Vermont and Berlin.   Just how MANY places are there with that name?

You mean that it's not just a Bristol suburb?   :o

https://www.allthemontpeliers.org/ (https://www.allthemontpeliers.org/)

I looked up the Bristol Montpelier on the above link.  Apparently there were open air swimming baths and a pleasure gardens.  This started me wondering where they were.  No idea where the baths might have been but could the pleasure gardens have been what is now St Andrews Park?

I don't know the area myself, but there's a swimming bath marked to the south of the coal yard on this map:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18&lat=51.46725&lon=-2.58955&layers=178&b=1 (https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18&lat=51.46725&lon=-2.58955&layers=178&b=1)

Yes; Renison's Bath was there in the 3rd Edition 25" OS Map but had gone by 1946.

It just occurs to me that maybe Bath Buildings was named after this pool, rather than after Bristol's Second Nicest Suburb?

Yes, named after the bath not Bath. It could have been called Spa Street or Pool Place! Note also the cycle track a little to the north, now the site of Velo Villas*.









*Not true!

Rennison's baths were in the Grand Pleasure Gardens which were built in 1746 by Thomas Rennison, and covered the area east of Cheltenham Road, which now makes up the western side of Montpelier. The original pool was round and over 400 feet in circumference, with a smaller ladies pool nearby. The Old England tavern, which was my local for many years when I lived in Montpelier, was built in the gardens to provide refreshments. The gardens closed in 1916, with part of the site being sold to what became Colston's Girls School.

I have created a new topic here for posts about Ticket Vending Machines on Severn Beach Line: 

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=26283.msg320595#msg320595