A trip to Bristol

My wife and I usually go to Bristol once a year so that I can visit a Bristol Masonic Lodge or Holy Royal Arch Conclave. We set off on Friday afternoon at 2.00pm, and after a long drive through pouring rain, we reached our hotel just after 6.00pm.

We had booked a room at the Victoria Square Hotel in Bristol ...

... which is located in the Clifton area, and which is only a ten minute walk from the Bristol Masonic Temple building in Park Street.

The building that houses Freemasonry in Bristol was destroyed by enemy action in 1940, but was rebuilt to its original plans in 1957. It is a truly magnificent building, with a very imposing entrance hall ...

... and equally impressive Lodge Rooms or Temples.

On this occasion I attended a meeting of the Matthew Chapter No.9688 of the Holy Royal Arch, and I was thus able to see Bristol Workings at first hand. (Bristol is a Masonic Province in its own right, and uses Ritual that is very distinctively different from that used almost anywhere else in England and Wales. Bristol Workings, as the Ritual is called, is always worth seeing, and once experienced it is never forgotten.)

The meeting started at 11.00am, and afterwards the wives and partners of those attending the meeting were able to join us for an excellent lunch in one of the building's airy dinning rooms.

We finished eating our meal not long after 3.15pm, and by the time we had returned to the hotel and collected our car it was almost 4.00pm. We then set off for home, and we back indoors by 7.15pm, having had a somewhat less fraught journey back.