After Griffin, High Street, Bristol, c.1908

High Street is one of the four streets that met at the heart of medieval Bristol. Bombing on 24 November 1940 destroyed most of its east side, and the remaining buildings there were cleared in 1963.

The drawing shows the street as it looked around 1908, with shop signs on every frontage. Among them are the Maypole Dairy Company, Tomlinson’s café offering ‘Popular Dinners & Teas’, a barber advertising ‘Hair Cutting’ and ‘Shaving’, and a continental restaurant and wine merchant. Gothic stone fronts stand beside a jettied timber-framed house, and a domed tower rises at the end of the street.

Print after a pencil drawing, signed and dated in the plate ‘Griffin ’78’. Lettered below ‘Bygone Bristol Series No: 12’, ‘High Street, Bristol. c 1908’ and ‘Printed by Cameo Press, Bristol.’ In a black and gilt frame.