Inspired by Irish playwright, Brian Friel’s play Translations – a 19th century story about a colonial British Ordnance Survey where all the Irish names of places were ignored and they put only English names on the map, disregarding all the cultural heritage captured within the original Irish names.

Our modern maps, particularly in our digital world, are potentially disconnecting us from our local placenames, many of which are colloquial memories of an event or person. Our recent community projects have revealed neighbourhood names like The Donkey Park (that may have only seen a donkey once in living memory), The Diddly Dumps (a favourite play area that was essentially a rubbish tip post WW2) and slightly more familiar names that don’t appear on any map such as The Gossie (a stream in Speedwell), The Cups and Saucers (a local name for the Purdown telecommunications tower) and even Turbo Island. People continue to refer to The Fountains opposite Bristol Hippodrome despite them now being permanently covered over.

How many of these names have persisted through the generations?

Working with local artists, we want to focus on three neighbourhoods (St Pauls, Stockwood and Southmead) and hold a series of intergenerational community mapping events to capture local placenames, literally putting them on the map. Illustrated by local communities.

A series of promotional mapping events with elders and younger people, will culminate in the local library, bringing young and old together to share their perceptions of the area, recent and long remembered childhood landmarks and the unofficial names that local people have for places to inform a community map created by the artists.

Previous neighbourhood participants as well as citizens of all ages from across the city will be invited to a final drop-in Saturday event at Sparks (formerly Marks and Spencers, Broadmead) showcasing the community maps and work with our artists to map meaningful landmarks and unofficial names for the city centre and beyond to contribute towards our ultimate ambition of a Bristol Atlas.