Each street is presented by a local -
After all they’re the ones who know it best!
We’ve found characters who truly love the city streets and know their heritage, character and want to invite others to explore with them.
Our tour guide for Easton and Lawrence Hill is the law student and positive thinking local entrepreneur Tayyab Khan. Tayyab knows these streets and traders like the back of his hand, having grown up and worked here. As an activist for gender and race equality, he's a great guide for the best Chai in town and an all-round lovely guy!
Rick has been a face around the area for over thirty years and is well known in the running community. For the past 14 years, his shop Up & Running has done a roaring trade in North View. He works with local businesses to support the Henleaze Christmas Festival and organise community projects including the ever popular treasure trail over the summer school holidays, which started in 2012.
Our local hero for Clifton and Cotham is the bubbly Bristolian Emma! Cotham resident Emma is a huge supporter of independents with her parents having owned Bristols founding wholefoods shop, Grainstore. Emma spent 20 years working as a props and costume maker before founding Chandos Atelier - a creative paradise on Chandos Road. Chandos Atelier doesn’t teach art, they create a fun space for learning and their sessions and parties build children’s confidence through creative play. Offering a table full of materials, a few methods and techniques and a lot of room for exploration, Emma can make almost anything and believe you can too!
Where to start with Christine Bamford? She has a passion for diversity, empowerment and her Stoke Lane community. This passion has led her to become founder and chief executive of Women’s Coin, focussing on cryptocurrency for social good and helped to establish programmes such as ‘Step Up’, a platform that enables access to learning, free of charge for women and their families living in difficult environments. This led to the training of 300 diverse leaders since 2018!
Sarah is the Flux Gallery owner and manager in the Christmas Steps Quarter. She has been a nature-inspired jeweller for over 20 years using metal folders, recycled silver and fairtrade gold. She loves working closely with a community of makers and artists and her neighbouring businesses to showcase Bristol's independent makers within the Christmas Steps and Bristol.
Latoya is a Bristolian entrepreneur and creator of the first black-owned concept popup store in Bristol, Kitchen Cosmetics. She offers support and retail opportunities to the community and is a well-known face among the independents in Bristol Shopping Quarter.
Miles is a leading and popular poetic cultural commentator, Slam Champion, playwright and Bristol's first city poet laureate. He has been living in Bristol for the past 20 years, and St Pauls is one of his favourite places to spend his time. His poetry can be seen all over Bristol, including a video performance at the M-Shed, in an exhibition at We The Curious and immortalised on the walls of the Bristol Old Vic. Miles’ favourite things? Poetry slams and Jerk chicken! You can also catch Miles cooking up some traditional Jamaican cuisine on the Agnes Spencer stall – it’s delicious!
Ella has been working on Park Street for the last 8 years and works as head of operations for the Folk House. Moving to Bristol to study art, she fell in love with the city and joined the team to help supply adult education; not to mention the amazing classes on offer for arts, crafts, pottery or language. She is constantly looking to develop the Folk House and their courses to better serve the community and needs of their students.
Tom has been a practising artist for over 20 years and has produced over 60 projects across many mediums, including - museum audio-tours, theatre & cabaret. Actively encouraging dialogue with participants through socially engaged processes such as ‘Tea Parties’, allows him to evocative glimpses into everyday life, letting him tell engaging, poetic & unpretentious stories. An overarching theme of his work is that of the outsider & their story, particularly regarding the LGBTQ+ experiences and stories. He is a proud resident of the area and has created a new show, Old Market (REMIXED), which uncovering hidden histories of communities with Old Market, shining a light on the 1990s to the present day. His work has been shown in various venues across the UK, including Bristol’s Old Vic and the Arnolfini.
Jax has lived in Brislington for the last 40 years and fell in love with Sandy Park's vibrant community. She is well known within the community for co-founding the group SPLAT, championing locals and traders, as well as organising fundraisers for area improvements and events such as the Christmas lights switch on. She also runs lively Zumba classes for the community, keeping them healthy and jubilant.
Local resident Leila Akhmedova is known throughout Bristol for working closely with a range of different businesses from Zaras Chocolate to Toyville. She created the Northstreet BS3 blog that is all about loving South Bristol and North Street.
"Knowle West resident, Claudia, works as a Creative Engagement Facilitator for Filwood Fantastic and is a massive part of the community. You may have seen her with a wheelbarrow, building sandcastles around the beach named streets of Knowle West. Dressed like a bunch of grapes delivering wine, performing as the reading reindeer at Christmas or cycling dressed as a sunflower over the summer.
All of her alter egos are down to Dyslexic thinking skills, something that is celebrated in her social enterprise, Brislexic. Claudia sells gifts to raise funds and awareness promoting the celebration of neurodiversity. What better person to take us through the streets of Filwood.
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Our local hero for Broadwalk and Totterdown is none other than local chef Josh Eggleton who has lived in the area for the past 10 years and is a born and bred Bristolian! The culinary entrepreneur is an incredibly active member of the city's ever-growing food scene, as owner of the Pony Bistro, Salt & Malt, The Kensington Arms and also the co-founder of Breaking Bread. This tour shows his love of this community including it’s pubs, florists and brilliant food producers.
New Clifton resident Jock joined the community in August 2020 in the midst of the pandemic and quickly got to know the traders on his doorstep. After a career in the events industry leading international businesses including Imagination, he loves Clifton Village for its diversity, vibrancy and vitality, and believes that its the retailers and hospitality establishments that make the community amazing. Moving to the city from Oxfordshire countryside, Jock appreciates the incredible community spirit and proximity of green spaces to these shopping streets.
Stand up comedian and founder of Belly Laughs Mark Olver is one of Bristol's biggest comedy exports! Brislington local and a huge supporter of its traders, he takes comedy shows to restaurants across the city during January and February to support them and raise money for charities including Fareshare South West and the Western Air Ambulance.
Sherrie grew up on Mina Road and lived here for over 30 years. You might know her face from her Caribbean cooking show or one of a huge number of community projects. She is also a renowned BSL interpreter. Her memories of playing in the park with her friends and never needing to leave this amazing village come through in her film as she meets all the area's characters.
Our local guide Hilary is Chairman of the Westbury-on-Trym society and has lived in the area for over 50 years. A well known face, she has been influential on projects including raising funds to dress the village with flowers for the last 40 years. Her love of the history of the village is clear, as is her pride in her local shopkeepers. The area is blazoned with bright flowers all summer long thanks to the hanging baskets organised by the society to welcome the businesses back to work, and shoppers back to the streets.
This street features not one but two local heroes in Brian and Janet who have been involved in the Two Mile Hill community for the last 50 years. They collectively run the Nylon Shop which sells high-quality fabric to customers all over the UK.
The legendary North Bristol barber has been serving his community for over 35 years. His clients come from all different backgrounds, from local tradesmen to financial advisors. All in need of one thing, a snappy cut and a good chat!
Sham is an Easton resident and was named one of the 24 most influential people under 24 by Rife Magazine. An amazing photographer, he works for Integrate UK with young people tackling issues including grooming, radicalisation and honour-based violence and abuse. You'll also find him vlogging on Youtube, presenting at events and helping the communities of East Bristol with voluntary work. An all round amazing community member, his guided tour of Stapleton Road is a brilliant watch!
Born and bred in Southmead, Deondre is a massive fan of the local area and the supportive community. He has been visiting the Youth Centre since he was 13 and encouraging others to stay active by leading sport sessions. Having just finished college he is about to start an apprenticeship while playing semi-professional football on the side.
Anthony 'Tubs' Webb was Shirehampton's butcher for 47 years and is a local legend. He swapped his butchers apron for lycra in recent years and is cycling to Lands End just as this project comes to life. A huge support for the community, he stays actively involved with many of the area's traders.
Inkie emerged from the graffiti writing scene in Bristol in the 80s. Painting alongside 3D and later Banksy, coming 2nd in the 1989 World Street Art Championships, the ‘Kingpin’ was arrested as the head of 72 other writers in the UK's largest ever Graffiti bust, Operation Anderson. Inkie has since worked as head of design for SEGA / Xbox and Jade Jagger’s design studio and his work can be seen in almost every district of the city and even graces the Shipshape and Bristol Fashion Gin bottles!
He is a big champion of his Gloucester Rd patch, close to where he resides and works here in Bristol.
Fishponds local Kate Brooks is the creator and host of events and walks for The People’s University of Fishponds and creator of the mug and tote bag 'Fishponds...it's quite nice.' As well as being a very proactive member of the local community, she works as an Associate Lecturer in Education History and Heritage at Bath Spa University. She's a regular contributor to social history projects.
She is also part of the organising team for Fishfest, which used to happen in the grounds of Fishponds Academy along Fishponds Rd, and one year had to refund someone their £1 entrance fee as there wasn’t any fish.
One of the most recognisable faces of Bristol's culinary scene, Dom is co-owner with his cousin Ben Harvey of Pasta Loco, Pasta Ripiena and Bianchi's delis and establishments, as well as being part of the founding team of pop up food project Breaking Bread on Bristol Downs. During lockdown Dom worked with a network of the city's chefs and food businesses to create Cheers Drive, the UK’s first-ever free food delivery service, supporting the city's homeless. Regulars to his restaurants would liken his exuberant style more to the frontman of a great rock and roll band.
Redfield resident Lindsey is a performer, writer and mentor. As well appearing in theatre and short films, she's also written plays and traveled the world as a tour guide. Combining her love for history and theatre performance, she now teaches classes at the Bristol Old Vic. She believes anything goes when it comes to improv and she loves people - you'll recognise her as a regular character in Closer Each Day, the world's longest improvised narrative and Bristol's cult hit of a spontaneous soap opera hosted at the Wardrobe Theatre.
Ade Williams is one of Bedminster's most amazing characters, made famous beyond Bristol through Rankin's portraits of NHS staff during the pandemic. He moved to the U.K. 23 years ago from Nigeria. After being utterly awestruck at how the NHS functioned, he jumped at the chance become a pharmacist, now working alongside a GP practice and advising on the board of a local hospital. The community know Ade for his incredible kindness and patience, taking the time to talk to each person, and to understand what they are going through, alongside his wife and fellow pharmacist at Bedminster Pharmacy.
