A House Through Time

Mel O'Drama

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Has anyone been watching this fascinating series?



Series Three is now three quarters of the way through its four parts. The timing is quite uncanny. With the toppling of Colston's statue in Bristol last week, the house's connections to Bristol's slave trade have a currency and Episode One was fresh in my mind as the events in Bristol unfolded.

The name Guinea Street is itself a clue about Number 10’s origins. It is named after the Guinea Coast in west Africa, a hub of the international slave trade. And the date the house was built, 1718, was at a time when Bristol was becoming Britain’s premier slaving port. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the man who built the house, Captain Edmund Saunders, was a prolific slave trader himself, trafficking men, women and children from Africa to the sugar plantations of the Caribbean.

Saunders wasn’t the only resident with connections to the slave trade. As David finds out, the same is true of the first full-time resident, Joseph Smith. Smith was another sea captain, and while hunting for more information about his life, David uncovers extraordinary evidence from one of his voyages from 1721. A handwritten account from one of the ship’s crew reveals a story of piracy, peril and revenge which moves from the Caribbean back to Bristol, and eventually ends in London and the gallows.

Each new era has brought its own fascination as it's thoroughly explored. This week's third episode delved into a resident using a pseudonym and coded advertisements to sell mail order abortion pills in 1909.


Here's a review of Episode One.
 

Mel O'Drama

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The house featured in the series is now listed for sale on Right Move.

The listing describes the house as "historically significant", though doesn't mention that the significance is due to being built by a slaver. Some commenters have been asking if the series was just an extended advertisement for the listing.

I'm sure the house will get much interest from people who've watched the series and would like a snoop. Though whether anyone would be prepared to pay £800k for an end-of-terrace house with no real garden that's surrounded by ugly blocks of flats in a less-than-desirable area of the city and now certain to garner negative interest due to its controversial history being broadcast nationally is another matter entirely.
 

Mel O'Drama

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Last night I completed the series with the final episode. It was good to cover the recent history of the house, the residents and the city. And great to meet some people who've lived in the house since WWII.

The timing of the house sale was still in my mind when I watched, and so the "current" owners' comments about viewing themselves as "custodians" who hoped to pass the house onto others seemed a little cynical and arguably opportunistic. The overall feeling one's left with is that the series has been one big glossy commercial for their house. Which they're entitled to do, of course. But it cheapens the experience a little.

One aspect of the series I never got comfortable with was the tendency of the presenter to alternate between past and present tenses when speaking about the same historical event. Even understanding the psychology behind it, I view speaking about past events in present tense as a bit wanky anyway. I know many historians choose to speak in this way (all the "experts" interviewed in the series seemed to have been prepped to speak in present tense), but I'd have been able to tolerate it better if it had been used consistently. As it was, it was a little like the audio equivalent of reading a badly edited Wikipedia page.

But these things aside, it's been a fascinating, insightful and thought-provoking journey. Recommended.
 
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