BBC Bristol celebrates 90 years of broadcasting

Bea Swallow - BBC News, Bristol
·3-min read
A black and white image of a man fiddling with recording equipment. There are large magnetic recording discs on the desk, and he is leaning over them to adjust the sound.
The broadcasting base in Clifton saw the birth of BBC Radio Bristol and Points West [BBC]

It is officially 90 years since the BBC opened the Bristol office to provide broadcasting to the west of England.

Two years after Broadcasting House in London opened as the first purpose built broadcast centre in the UK, the BBC Bristol studios went live in 1934.

By 1940, six studios had been established at the Broadcasting House on Whiteladies Road as the BBC eventually acquired the surrounding houses.

Since then, the site has produced thousands of world-famous broadcast programmes and served as the home of the Natural History Unit for many years.

A black and white image of the former entrance to BBC Bristol on Whiteladies Road. It is a large stone building with sash windows and pillars outside.
The broadcasting base in Clifton opened on 18 September 1934 [BBC]

The Lord Mayor of Bristol officially opened the Whiteladies Road studios and offices on the 18 September 1934.

The centre, which included an important large space to hold an entire orchestra, was one of the most modern radio centres of its day.

Each studio was designed for a different acoustic purpose, including orchestral, drama, sound effects and "talking".

A black and white image of a recording studio. It is a fairly blank room with a grand piano sitting in the middle and a microphone on a stand poised above the piano. There is also an overhead seating area to the right.
This recording room is where the Points West studio stands today [BBC]

Bristol's role in broadcasting was transformed during World War II, when the corporation moved its major entertainment departments out of London.

The London blitz started on 7 September 1940, and weeks later the Broadcasting House took its first hit.

But the BBC had a contingency plan for such an event.

A black and white image of the control room. Three men are sitting at a desk wearing headphones, looking towards a switchboard in front of them with lots of buttons on it. Behind them there is a wall filled with more equipment and wires.
The control room ensured that all signals were properly routed and all technical standards were met to maintain broadcast quality [BBC]

London was able to quickly switch to broadcasting in Bristol - sometimes in the middle of a news bulletin - when the capital was under attack.

It's thought that the German Air Force used BBC transmitters to guide bombers to their targets, so engineers switched transmitters to put them off course.

A black and white picture of a control room. One wall is completely filled with dials and switches, and there are two rows of old equipment sitting in the middle of the floor.
Switchboard and motor-generators were used for charging control room batteries [BBC]

Despite these thorough preparations, Bristol eventually came within bombing range of the Luftwaffe.

The BBC set up camp underground, in the disused tunnels of the former Clifton Rocks Railway, as a secret broadcasting base that would be safe from bombings.

A transmitter, studio and control room, and an 'ozoneator' to combat the smell of the river, were all concealed in the railway tunnel.

A black and white image of the Clifton Rocks Railway exterior entrance. It is a brick tunnel carved into the cliff, with four metal ventilation shafts pointing upwards. There are two cars parked outside the entrance.
The former railway, which closed in 1934, became a secret transmission base [BBC]

After the war, the Bristol office developed some pioneering radio programmes, like Any Questions, which was first broadcast on the West of England Home Service in 1948.

In 1945, Desmond Hawkins joined the BBC and began producing a long-running series called The Naturalist.

He went on to found the Natural History Unit (NHU), whose highly-acclaimed Life on Earth series was aired on BBC Two in 1979.

A black and white image of a cameraman holding equipment, looking towards the camera while a gorilla sits beside him.
It took the Natural History Unit three years to film and edit the series [BBC]

The regional news programme Points West, as seen on your screens today, began as a five-minute television news show in September 1957.

Fast forward to 1970 and BBC Radio Bristol was born, with the first broadcast airing on 4 September.

A black and white picture of a woman sitting at a broadcasting desk in front of a microphone which says BBC on it. She is surrounded by old recording equipment.
Post-production took place at the BBC offices in Bristol [BBC]

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