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Redcliffe, BristolRibbonhit

Guinea Street, Redcliffe

A bonded warehouse of 1906, with eighteen rooms in it

Cast iron columns, brick arches, a cart passage straight through the ground floor, and a vault at the back that used to hold bonded spirit.

The bond

What it was for

Goods came off the floating harbour, two hundred metres north, and went into bond here until the duty was paid. That is why there is a passage wide enough for a cart running right through the ground floor, and why the vault at the back has a door you could drive a barrel through.

It stopped being a bond in 1971. It was a printer's until 1994, then storage, then empty. The conversion ran from 2016 to 2018. The columns stayed, the arches stayed, the passage stayed, and the floors were lifted and put back.

The painted brick wall along the cart passage
Section through the warehouse Five floors on cast iron columns. The ground floor is the cart passage and the vault. Three floors of rooms sit above it and the top floor holds the plant and the tank. Plant and tank Third floor, six rooms Second floor, six rooms First floor, six rooms Ground: cart passage, bar, the vault cast iron columns, 1906
Five floors on cast iron. The ground floor is the passage and the vault.

Rooms

Eighteen, in four sizes, and the sizes are honest

Brick on at least one wall in every room. Windows that open. No carpet anywhere in the building.

  • 18 square metresSmallSix of them, second and third floors, one window.
  • 24 square metresStandardSix, first and second, two windows, a desk.
  • 28 square metresCornerFour, on the corners, windows on two walls.
  • 34 square metresThe Loading BayTwo, ground floor, with the original doors.

The same in all eighteen

  • Bed Pocket sprung, 150 cm in all but the small rooms
  • Noise Secondary glazing to the street; Guinea Street is quiet after eleven
  • Heat Underfloor, and it is slow, so set it early
  • Not provided Television, minibar, trouser press, slippers
A warehouse room with its three tall windows

The vault

The casino room is the vault at the back of the cart passage

It is in this building. The casino floor has four tables and a counter and it opens five nights a week. The vault held bonded spirit from 1906 until 1971, which is why the walls are a brick and a half thick, why the door frame is iron, and why the floor still has the shallow channel that ran to a drain in case a cask went over.

From the desk you walk into the cart passage and go to the end of it: fifty paces, indoors the whole way, under four floors of rooms. There is somebody on that door every hour it is open. The rule there is 18 and a photo ID, every time, and nobody has ever talked their way past it.

What the vault is like

Ground floor, with the walk from the desk to the vault The street door opens on the hall and the desk. Behind it runs the cart passage, which goes right through the building under the upper floors. The vault is the last bay of that passage on the left. Nothing on the route is outside. Street door Desk Cart passage roofed, right through the block Bar The vault four tables fifty paces, indoors the whole way
Desk, cart passage, vault. Fifty paces and no outside doors.

Eating

One room, one service, and a bar that shuts before the tables do

Breakfast is from half past six to half past nine in what was the shipping office. Dinner is at half past seven, Tuesday to Saturday, three courses, no choice, written up by noon.

The bar in the passage opens at four and closes at midnight, an hour before the vault. The beer is from three breweries inside the city. The wine list is nineteen bottles and we can tell you about all of them.

The front room off the passage is the one people sit in between the two. Nobody is going to move you on.

The ground-floor common room
The long table laid in what was the shipping office

Finding us

Ten minutes from Temple Meads, on foot

  • Station Bristol Temple Meads, ten minutes on foot across Redcliffe Bridge
  • Harbour Two hundred metres north. The ferry stops at Redcliffe Quay.
  • Parking None here. Queen Charlotte Street car park is four minutes.
  • Airport Bristol Airport, 13 km, and the A1 bus takes about half an hour

Guinea Street climbs. The front door is nine steps up from the pavement and there is a level entrance through the cart passage, which is the way to come with a case.

The public steps that run between the two blocks

One room in this building is for gaming and no other part of it is. The Ribbonhit Room runs nothing online, holds no account for anybody and handles no payment through this website.