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Redcliffe, BristolRibbonhit

Ground floor, end of the cart passage

The Ribbonhit Room

The room that held bonded spirit from 1906 to 1971, and has held four tables since 2018.

This is a room of this hotel. Not somebody else's business, not another address, and the walk never leaves the building. The casino is the last bay of the cart passage, with three floors of guest rooms directly above it.

From the desk you walk into the passage and keep going until it stops. Fifty paces, under cover for every one of them, which in this city is not a small thing. That door is staffed from the moment it opens to the moment it shuts, and it is the only way in: the old barrel door to the lane was welded shut in 2017 and you can see the weld.

The stone vault at the back of the ground floor
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, passage, vault, drawn on the ground floor.
  • Hours Wednesday to Sunday, eight in the evening until one
  • Size Four tables and a counter with five stools
  • Age 18, photo ID, checked every visit
  • Dress Nothing is asked except that you are dry

The room

Four tables fit under the arch and four is all the casino will ever hold. On a Wednesday in February two are open. On a Saturday in August all four are, and then the casino floor is counted in and out on the door, because the vault takes thirty-four people and there is one way in and out of it.

It is a bond, so it is heavy: brick a foot and a half thick, a segmental brick arch overhead, an iron door frame, and a stone floor with the spill channel still cut into it along the north wall. There is no music, which people mention. The loudest thing in there is the extract fan. The casino keeps a clock over the counter and the staff are told to tell you the time the first time you ask, not the second.

About dress: be dry. That is the whole of it. It rains here and the passage does not have a door on the lane end any more, so people arrive wet, and wet people and a stone floor do not go together.

Age and ID

Here the casino age is 18 by statute. This door applies it with nothing waived for anybody, including a guest one floor up and including on a quiet Wednesday with two tables open.

ID is checked every visit, not once a stay. That includes the guest who ate in the old office an hour earlier and spoke to the same member of staff. A passport, a UK photocard driving licence, or a PASS-accredited proof of age card is what gets taken. A phone showing a picture of a licence is not a licence, and arguing about it at the door has never worked once.

Under 18s do not come into the casino at any hour, including the hours when the vault is empty and being cleaned, and including a wish to see the spill channel. People do ask about the spill channel. The answer is a photograph behind the desk.

Limits and stopping

Limits are set on the casino floor by whoever is working it. Give your number before you sit and it goes on the sheet and stays there. Ask them to set one for you and they will, and it will be lower than the one in your head.

Stopping is arranged in person at the desk. Not in the vault, not on the telephone, not by email. Self-exclusion is signed at the desk, bites that night, and comes off only in person at the same desk. Nobody at the counter can do it and nobody at the counter will try.

No credit of any kind on the casino floor, and no cash machine anywhere in this building: not in the vault, not in the passage, not behind the desk. The nearest is on Redcliff Street, four minutes away, uphill on the way back.

No gaming happens on this site

What there is is one room in a warehouse on Guinea Street. That is the entire description. What it describes is a building, and one room inside that building. It does not run a game. It does not take money. It does not hold an account.

To play you come to Guinea Street, show ID on the door at the end of the passage, and sit down. One door, no alternative, and not a step of it occurs on this website.