What was arch part of?
Yet again, I take my hat off to Eugene Byrne for his deeply researched article headed ‘Darlings of Valour’ (BT Oct 12) in which he unearthed a story about white people being captured for slavery.
A figure in excess of one million victims is suggested, so going back in history, that more or less balances out thoughts that it was NOT exclusively black people who were treated as such for huge financial gain.
Muslim pirates from North Africa were the main culprits in this case, and unless their victims converted the Muslim faith (these people would be either Protestants or Catholics), they could be freed, otherwise they were either put to work or sold on.
But these pirates were also in it for taking ransoms, where the two churches would gather up enough funds to be able to negotiate somebody’s freedom ... an entirely different approach to Bristol’s infamous enriched dealer that sparked off all the recent disruptive behavior!
Now a question … I was travelling towards Brislington on the Bath Road and passed Arnos ‘Cas
tle’ on the right hand side (quite a coincidence that it should appear in the same issue as a ‘Life in Colour’ feature), but just before that, and again over on my right hand side, I noticed a massive freestanding decorative stone archway, set side on to the road, and rather obscured by small trees and undergrowth.
If you know happen to know of it, what was this arch originally part of? Forgive my ignorance, but is it anything to do with Arnos Vale Cemetery, or something completely different? It puzzles me! Any offers?
Regular BT reader by email
Editor’s reply:
The kidnapping of Christians for gain by Muslim pirates, something which went on until it was stamped out by force in the early 19th century, is one of those things which gets some people worked up, allowing them to proclaim that slavery was something that happened to white people, too, as though that somehow makes it all OK.
As the original article, and “Regular BT Reader” point out, though, there were differences. Africans were traded across the Atlantic in far larger numbers – an estimated 12-13 million – by various European nations, of whom Portugal and Britain shipped the largest numbers. These people had no hope of freedom and to this day their descendants are among the more economically disadvantaged peoples of the Caribbean and the Americas. The successor nations of the pirate states of North Africa profited little from their forebears’ criminality in the long run.
The arch referred to is presumably the Arnos Court “Triumphal Arch” which was built around 1760 for brass-founder William Reeve (who also built the “Black Castle” from the by-products of his industry). It may have been designed by James Bridges and the niches on the front were to house statues taken from some of Bristol’s medieval gateways (Newgate and possibly Lawford’s) which by then were being knocked down.
The arch was supposed to be the entrance to the Black Castle, but was moved in 1912 to form an entrance to Reeve’s bath house. The bath house, following years of decay, was demolished in the 1960s, while the arch underwent restoration in the 1990s.