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Bristol Leasing

Did You Know?

The Exchange building on Corn Street which shows two times - the black minute hand shows London time (now GMT), and the red hand shows Bristol time! This was before time was standardised across the UK to accomodate railway schedules.

During WWII the Mercure Bristol Grand on Broad Street was the base for a network of spies who operated out of the building on behalf of the British government. Hotel employees would pass them encrypted notes which provided them with information about where they were required to travel while Temple Meads station in Bristol provided covert trains that transported them around the country to secret locations.

Bristol’s Fire Station is built on the location of an ancient 12th Century Knights Templar garrison and is said to be haunted. Since the first year of opening in 1975, experienced fire crews have reported seeing odd characters in the building and on one occasion the Cook chased a figure out of the kitchen.

Every British Concorde made their maiden flight from Filton Airfield in Bristol and now you can visit Concorde Alpha Foxtrot at Aerospace Bristol. She was designed, built and tested in Bristol, and was the final Concorde to be built and the last to fly.

Author J.K. Rowling was born and brought up in Chipping Sodbury, just a few miles from Bristol. It is claimed that she drew inspiration for her famous character Harry Potter after meeting a young boy in Bristol.

The Victoria Rooms, built in 1841, were host to many a literary icon. Charles Dickens and his friend Wilkie Collins performed two plays here in 1851, and Oscar Wilde also spoke at the Victoria rooms at great length on aesthetics.

Bristol is home to Bottle Yard Studios, the largest dedicated film and TV studio facility in the West of England. Many recognisable productions are filmed here including Poldark, Wolf Hall, Sherlock, Fortitude, The Crystal Maze, Trollied, Hellboy, Broadchurch and Galavant.

The Avon Gorge, is one of the most important botanical sites in the UK. The gorge has 27 incredibly rare plants and is home to some specimens of tree that are not found anywhere else in the entire world including the Bristol Whitebeam tree. Rare breeds of bats and falcons are also frequently spotted at the gorge.

Ribena, the popular blackcurrant flavoured soft drink, was invented by a University of Bristol scientist in 1933 at the National Fruit and Cider Institute, and quickly gained popularity during the war as an alternative source of vitamin C.

Bristolians are notorious for wanting to do things our own way, and in 2012 the Bristol Pound was launched. Designed to keep money in the local economy, it’s enjoyed a roaring success in keeping trade local since then.

Darth Vader is a Bristolian.
David Prowse was an English bodybuilder and actor best known as portraying the physical form of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy.