Cannon helped the war effort

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Eugene Byrne tells the story of ‘Nick’ and ‘Alexander’ and how they were carted off to help with the war effort 80 years ago

THERE are probably only a few Bristolians left who remember the pair of cannon that were once at the foot of the Cabot Tower. In their day they were a famous local landmark; people posed for photos by them, and three generations of children (and not a few adults) clambered onto them.

Their removal, on Friday June 4, 1942, to be melted down for munitions, tanks and guns for the war effort, was something of a local event, a little spectacle to relieve the dreariness of wartime Bristol.

From the perspective of 2022 it’s curious to see how things have turned full circle. Eighty years ago, Bristolians celebrated the possibility that the guns, captured by British forces in a war with Russia, might now be helping Russia, a country which was an essential ally in the fight against Hitler.

Today, once more, the Crimea features in a bloody war in which Britain is aligned against Russia.

The Crimean War of 1853-56 is half-remembered in British culture for things like the Charge of the Light Brigade, or the ministrations of Florence Nightingale and her nurses or, more recently, the help that Mary Seacole gave to wounded men. It also lives on in Victorian streets named after Crimean battles – Inkerman, Alma, Balaclava, Sevastopol …

The events and battles of the war itself are strictly for military history enthusiasts, while the causes and outcomes of the war are complicated by the names of territories and countries that no longer exist.

Czar Nicholas I, an authoritarian and aggressive autocrat who savagely repressed any opposition (remind you of anyone?) picked on the Ottoman Empire, sending troops to invade Moldavia and Wallachia (in what’s nowadays Romania). This led to war between Russia and a coalition involving Britain, France, Ottoman Turkey and Piedmont-Sardinia.

Reading up about the diplomatic and political background to the war might well be a cure for insomnia.

The main focus of the war on land was the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea (which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014) and the Allied siege of the Russian-held port of Sevastopol.

Nicholas did not benefit from his aggression. Russia lost, albeit at a great cost to the allies, particularly the British. The ineptitude of Britain’s military leaders and the neglect of ordinary soldiers’ welfare became a national scandal.

Russia sued for peace in March 1856 and a treaty was soon signed. The war weakened Russian influence in Europe for decades and for the rest of the 19th century Russia was widely regarded in western Europe as a backward place where the mildest dissent was met with imprisonment, exile and torture (sound familiar?)

Among the spoils of war for the Allies was a very great deal of Russian artillery – perhaps around 4,000 separate muzzle-loading cannon. Most were from the capture of the fortress of Sevastopol, and most were iron. Only a few were brass. Britain took about 1,000 of the guns, many arriving in the UK as ballast in ships travelling home from the Black Sea.

Legend has it that Victoria Cross medals, instituted in 1856 to honour conspicuous valour during the Crimean War, and to this day Britain’s highest military decoration, are struck from metal from Crimean cannon. This may have been true for a while, but more recent research suggests that medals made since 1914 came from a couple of Chinese cannon.

The Crimean guns were offered to municipal corporations to mount in parks and other public places as permanent reminders of the victory. Bristol applied for two.

They arrived from the Woolwich arsenal on the afternoon of Wednesday August 19, 1857. The train pulled into Temple Meads station at 2pm, where soldiers from Horfield Barracks under the command of Colonel McMurdo took charge of them.

It was a great occasion; flags were hung out and thousands lined the streets to watch them being taken to their place of honour on the summit of Brandon Hill (Cabot Tower had not been built yet).

Each gun, drawn by a team of 12 horses, proceeded through the city accompanied by an escort from the Bristol Constabulary. Part of the wall around Brandon Hill had to be demolished to open a passage, and they were pulled by horses and manhandled by soldiers to the summit. The ceremony ended with a brief speech from the mayor, and another from Colonel McMurdo. Three cheers were given for the mayor and the proceedings were at

Many other cities gave up their Crimean guns to help with the war effort; this one being removed from a park in Coventry in 1943 is leaving with a suitable message chalked on it for the press photographer (Mirrorpix) an end. One newspaper reporter claimed that the guns had already been named ‘Nick’ and ‘Alexander’ by locals in honour of the commonest names of the rulers of the recently-defeated enemy.

There they remained, being repositioned slightly when Cabot Tower was built, until 1942 when they were taken away for the war effort. While the crowds were probably smaller than on the day they arrived, this was only because so many Bristolians were away serving in the forces, and so many more were at work.

The Western Daily Press of Friday June 5, 1942 reported:

CROWDS thronged Park Street, College Green, and the Centre yesterday to see the procession which escorted Bristol’s Crimean guns to the melting pot.

The two cannons, which were captured at Sebastopol in 1855, were a familiar sight to thousands of visitors to the Cabot Tower. Now they may go back to Russia again – in the form of tanks.

The procession itself was not a large one … It consisted of a Royal

One of the cannon at the base of the Cabot Tower in the 1930s

Marines Band, Electricity Department truck bearing the guns, small detachments of soldiers and sailors, members of the British Legion, and representatives of the Merchant Navy ...

… It was the symbolism of the ceremony, however, that was important ... the forging new weapons from old hates … former enemies, now fighting together as friends, pooling the spoils of that enmity for their common good.

The Hammer and Sickle, the Stars and Stripes, and the Union Jack fluttered together over the guns as they crawled slowly to the railway goods yard. It was their last hour of glory before they became six tons of scrap metal. The BBC were at Berkeley Square, recording the scene – and particularly the cheering – as the procession moved off.

Not every municipality parted with its Crimean guns; there are still a fair few in parks around Britain and Ireland, but Nick and Alexander are gone for ever, though whether or not any of the iron they yielded went to Russia will probably never be known.

THE first impression of the small riverside town of Severn Beach might be of a sprawling development of old and new housing built for commuters. Or perhaps you notice the impressive sea wall, keeping the muddy brown Bristol Channel at bay.

Equally, you may be impressed by the sight and sound of traffic hammering across the Prince of Wales Bridge. Not very inspiring, but linger a while, don a pair of walking shoes and look around because much unexpected history is to be discovered.

In the 19th century, Severn Beach was farmland. Nearby at New Passage, a passenger ferry service had plied its way across the fearsome channel to Wales for centuries.

In 1863, the South Wales Union Railway linked up with the ferry and a jetty was built to handle passengers for their journey across the water. The railway brought construction workers and other staff to the village, which boosted its size.

A couple of decades later, in 1886, the Great Western Railway opened the Severn Tunnel, which passed through but didn’t stop at Severn Beach. Passengers could now travel safely in all weathers under the river by train.

In 1922, a local railway station was constructed at the southern end of the village, with a branch line linked to Bristol via Avonmouth. It was at this point that the benefits of enhanced communications and location were spotted by a local entrepreneur, Robert Charles Barton Stride (1894-1970).

Stride identified and sparked the growth of a new and perhaps unlikely industry. Between the two world wars, Severn Beach took off to become a surprising and successful local seaside resort (the Blackpool of the South West) and a popular tourist destination for Bristolians and others.

It is worth providing some perspective about the growth of UK tourism during this time. Clearly, in the immediate aftermath of World War One, freedoms and austerity initially restricted market growth. But social changes to employment, personal freedoms and finances, along with changing attitudes of both men and women towards their hard-earned leisure, and the feeling that holidays should not be restricted to middle and upper classes, fuelled rapid economic

The famous Blue Lagoon open air pool

1. Possibly the most iconic image of Severn Beach’s heyday as a resort, taken at the Blue Lagoon in the 1930s. Anyone know her name?

2. Crowds at the Blue Lagoon in 1937. (Photo: Fox Photos/Getty Images)

3. … and in later times. An aerial view in 1966.

4. By the early noughties, the idea of a Severn Beach as a resort was becoming, well, kind of ironic, as in this design on a popular T-shirt from Beast Clothing (beast-clothing.com)

5. September 1936: The bicycle delivery boy from G&M Betty Stores, Redwick, drops off a delivery for the Hodgkins family at Salthouse Farm, Severn

Beach. The Hodgkins were one of a number of families who bought redundant railway carriages from the Great Western Railway to use as holiday homes. (Photo: AJ O’Brien/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

6. The Second Severn Crossing, now Prince of Wales Bridge, under construction in January 1994. Having a motorway thundering overhead probably didn’t do Severn Beach many favours as a holiday destination. (Mirrorpix)

7. Colourised B&W image of the funfair. (Photo: Doug Nethercott)

8. The funfair in the 1950s.

9. The end of a grand day out, 1950s. The poster outside Severn Beach station says you can get to Clifton Down for two shillings, but is that single or return?

10. Sunset, one evening in 1980.