Long John Silver Invades Waterstones in Bristol !

March 6th 2008 was World Book Day and to prove the point the anti-hero of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘ Treasure Island ’ returned to Bristol to persuade the City’s children to increase their reading abilities.

Long John Silver, the loveable villain of the book, was the fictional landlord of the ‘Spyglass Inn’, where land-lubbers mixed with sea-farers and all attempted to avoid the attentions of the ‘Press Gang’. The Inn, reputedly based on Bristol’s ‘Hole in the Wall’ pub, was equipped with a spyglass window where revellers could keep a lookout, and escape through one of two doors into the maze of harbourside streets. The ‘Hole in the Wall’s name derives from the fact that it still possesses such a window.

The Long John Silver Statue Trust has been set up to promote Bristol’s literary and cultural heritage by creating a ‘Treasure Island Trail’ of sculptures or plaques to commemorate various scenes from the book. The trail would culminate in a sculpture of Long John himself, preferably stationed outside the ‘Hole in the Wall’.

To publicise the project the Trust commissioned a painting by Frank Shipsides, Bristol’s own maritime painter, showing how Long John would look on his plinth, and are selling prints to raise funds. As an interim measure a one-and-a-half times life-size wicker sculpture was commissioned from Devon sculptor Stephen Froome, and Long John’s inaugural appearance was at Waterstones Bookshop in Broadmead’s Galleries. He was unveiled by Bristol’s Lord Mayor Councillor Royston Griffey and to accompany him, members of the Trust played out a shortened version of ‘ Treasure Island ’ to parties of schoolchildren.

Out and About on the Trail

If you would like to experience an audio version of our Bristol Treasure Island Trail please go to Destination Bristol’s website at www.visitbristol.co.uk and download their excellent “Bristol Quayside Adventure” podcast for your MP3 Player. This innovative production is a combination of Bristol’s maritime history and Treasure Island, based in no small part on our Trail.

The Long John Silver Trust is also proud to announce a closer involvement with Bristol’s very own Buccaneer:- Pirate Pete, who is now an Honorary Member of our happy band of cut throats. To find out more about him please go to www.piratewalks.co.uk

Pirate Ferry Boat

The inaugural Treasure Island Cruise took place in July of 2006, where a party of pupils from Briars Wood school, under the auspices of locally based charity PROPS took to the high seas of Bristol’s historic Floating Harbour…View Article

Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of fun!!

Long John Silver Bottled Beer is selling like the clappers, and for Christmas, special gift packs are available.

Two of our stockists in Bristol are well worth a visit , Avery’s Wine Merchants and Gardiner Haskins.
Further afield, Wickwar Brewery’s own shop, and The Beaufort Arms in Hawkesbury Upton, can all solve your present buying problems.

Long John Silver Beer in BOTTLES!

We are delighted that our friends at Wickwar Brewery have now produced Long John Silver Beer in bottles. The bottled beer was launched in July 2006 at Wickwar’s brewery tap, and over thirty Long John Silver Trustees and supporters gathered to celebrate and (judging by the big pile of empties) promptly demolished the entire first batch.

Jonfun and Sarah examine a soon to be demolished stack of bottled LJS
Photo by Noel Jones

Frank Shipsides' "Tribute" Print

To start the fundraising activities of The Long John Silver Trust, Frank was commissioned to paint his impression of what literatures most famous scallywag would look like outside Stevenson's Spy-Glass Inn. He very kindly agreed to donate his royalties to the Trust in order for our campaign to get off the ground.

It was the Trust's intention to have 150 copies of the print signed by Frank but unfortunately, after only being able to sign 70 of them, Old Father Time caught up with him at the tender age of 97 in 2005.

Interactive Treasure Island Trail Online

There now is an interactive map of the proposed trail online here. Featuring background information and images of the proposed locations. A brief outline of the events in treasure island. A Profile of each proposed statue's character.

Bristol Treasure Island Trail Book
Release of second Edition!

This highly popular book has now been released in a larger, longer edition, with more pages and illustrations. This wonderful little book - packed with rarely seen illustrations - celebrates Bristol's connections with piracy and the high seas and includes stories about some of the city's most enterprising but rascally sons. It is also investigates Bristol's literary links with one of the most exciting pirate stories ever written, Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. It also contains details of the achievements of the Long John Silver Trust, sponsors of the book, which is now published by their own ‘Black Spot Publisher’, an Imprint of Diesel Publishing.

The Mervyn Peake Estate - an enthusiastic supporter of the Trail - has kindly allowed us to use Mervyn Peake's superb illustrations taken from the 1949 edition of the book.

A great present for landlubbers: price £5.95 (ISBN: 978 0 9554455 3 8)

Rarely available framed prints of Mervyn Peake's Treasure Island illustrations as featured in the book are available to purchase from our shop page

"The LJS Trust received a huge boost with the release of this book. Not only had the Treasure Island Trail been selected as one of the 24 walks featured, you can imagine our further delight when we realised that it had been chosen as walk number one!
The author, Lesley Turney has produced a smashing book that will entertain any family that has an interest in walking - and even those that don't. From Slimbridge in the north, to Brean Down in the south, you'll encompass every type of view and vista this area has to offer. Her writing style is easy going yet informative, and the book has the potential for hours of fun for the whole family (or just you and the dog).