|
It stands high on Brandon Hill near Bristol city centre. At 105
feet it may not rank among the giants of structures of its kind but add this to the height of the summit of the hill on
which it stands (about 250 feet) and you have a most imposing feature of the landscape. It was designed by William Venn Gough,
an architect who despite his name appears to have been a Bristolian.
Bristol seems to have claimed the man they call John Cabot simply because he sailed from the city on his
famous voyage of discovery. He was in fact an Italian named Giovanni Caboto (sometimes spelled Cabotti). The purpose of his
journey was to find a trade route to Asia! Since it was fairly safe in these increasingly enlightened times to declare that the
world was round, Cabot and others reasoned that it may be quicker to sail westwards. Of course, nobody (on this side of
the Atlantic) knew that there was a small obstacle in the way, namely the continent of America. This all happened decades
before Columbus, another renamed Italian (Cristóbal Colón) who seems to have collected the credit for discovering
America, was even born.
The tower's distinctive colour scheme is due to the stone of which it is built; a combination of red
sandstone and Cotswold limestone. A fascinating feature of the navigation beacon at its highest point is that, not content with
flashing on and off like all the others, it spells out the word "BRISTOL" in Morse Code. I wonder who thought of that one.
|