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Title
Date(s)
- c. 1866 - 1875 (Creation)
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Extent and medium
1 stereoscopic photograph mounted on blue card
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Born in Scotland, John Beattie was a travelling photographer and lecturer in phrenology and electricity who settled in Bristol in the 1850s. Throughout the 1860s until 1868 he ran a photographic business with Cyrus Voss Bark (d.1913). In the 1861 census he was recorded as an "artistic photographer" working at 25 The Triangle, Bristol. John Beattie paid a license to the Clifton Suspension Bridge Company to sell photographs and stationary from a wooden souvenirs kiosk located by the Clifton tower on the bridge from 1866 to 1875.
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The Clifton Down Hotel was also previously known as the Royal York and The Bath Hotel. On 21 June 1831, there was a foundation laying ceremony led by Lady Elton which was preceded by a breakfast held by the Bridge Committee at the hotel which was known as the Bath Hotel at the time. The laying of the Leigh Woods abutment foundation stone in 1836 also involved a dinner at the hotel which had ordered special commemorative china. The hotel was re-built from 1862 to 1864, opening as the Clifton Down Hotel in 1865 - five months after the completion of Clifton Suspension Bridge. The building was taken over by the Government in 1939 and in the twentieth century it was named as Bridge House.
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Note
This item has been conserved and digitised with thanks to The Murless Fund (SANHS).