Maggie Shapland
WE were very sorry to hear of the recent death of Maggie Shapland.
Many BT readers will know of her, and even more will have come across some of the great work she has done down the years, from small projects like the restoration of the shelter on Blackboy Hill all the way to her involvement in conserving the Brunel Swing Bridge in Cumberland Basin and, most of all, the Clifton Rocks Railway.
The massive book she researched and wrote about the Rocks Railway The Ups and Downs of the Clifton Rocks Railway and the Clifton Spa will remain the definitive work on the subject, all of it written after she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and just given a few months to live.
The diagnosis was in 2016, the book came out two years later and she was still going strong until very recently. It’s a testament to the singleminded determination she brought to everything she turned her hand to.
“I have too much to do to be ill,” she told BT when the book came out.
After 40 years working in IT at Bristol University she retired in 2013 and devoted herself full-time to local history and conservation. By then she had already been awarded the British Empire Medal for her work on the Rocks Railway and the history and conservation of Clifton. She was an active member of the Bristol Industrial Archaeology Society, the Clifton & Hotwells Improvement Society and other organisations as well as being a classic car enthusiast.
We would like to extend our sympathies to her family, her many friends and all the organisations which benefited from her energy and enterprise. The consolation in her loss is in the many things she achieved for Bristol.