Horfield Bristol BS7

Bygone view of Golden Hill on Kellaway Avenue, Horfield named after an MP and Postmaster General of the time, which has now become a very busy main road.

The Big Issue in the summer of 1992 was the planned Tesco store at Golden Hill, Henleaze. The "Battle of Golden Hill" really had its origins way back in the 1970s when Bristol Grammar School decided to sell 28 acres of its sports fields here, alongside Kellaway Avenue.

This meant, said protesters, that there was less inner city land - or "green lung" as it was known - left for sport and nature conservation. Then in 1988, an ever-expanding Tesco - despite already having a big store just a few minutes away at Eastville - put in a planning application for another. With its plans opposed by the city council, which didn't want to see the land put to this use, Tesco appealed.

Nicholas Ridley, then Environment Secretary, allowed the appeal and gave the go-ahead for the supermarket, plus a small estate of houses on a 14-acre site owned by Bristol Cathedral School and Bristol Municipal Charities. Ridley said that there was adequate playing field space nearby on a site owned by the YMCA (which promptly, and cynically, put in an application to build houses there, too).

Iain Patterson, the city planning officer, said at the time: "I have never come across such a strangely worded decision. This, taken at face value, invites anyone who owns private open space to build houses on it. The planning committee is as appalled by it as the officers."

Local people, too, were appalled. They weren't going to take the loss of their green acres lying down, and it wasn't long before normally law-abiding residents took to the streets. The protest, which started in early June 1992, centred on the lime trees in Kellaway Avenue which were threatened with the axe. Some thought that the trees could be saved under laws of 1910 governing Horfield Common - but it was always a long shot. The protesters set up camp - a house of timber covered by a tarpaulin complete with turfed lawn and flower beds - with an almost Dunkirk spirit.

Refreshment was dispensed from Ye Olde Green Tea caravan to choruses of, "We don't want Tesco". They were spurred on by a conservationists' victory in Stroud three years previously in which the local council had wanted to fell 12 beech trees to improve access to a new Tesco store. Roped to the trees in an all-night vigil, the protesters had managed to stop them being felled. The Golden Hill protesters were also given hope by Bristol West MP William Waldegrave, who backed their actions despite Tesco having planning permission.

For most of June, the "campers" managed to bar officials and workmen from entering the site, but by the end of the month Tesco had had enough and applied for a possession order at the High Court. At the end of July, after 64 days of protest, the bulldozers rolled in to a storm of protest, narrowly missing two protesters who had chained themselves to a skip at the site entrance. Tesco said that it regretted the action to seek lawful access but it had delayed the decision for some weeks for "talks with the community".

The protesters, caught off guard, stood in a flower-lined human avenue on the field that they had pledged they would save, and sang the hymn Jerusalem. Some openly wept as they carried out a 100ft banner covered with a William Blake poem. Canon John Wilson, the local rector, then prayed and blessed the field before leading them off the site. Flowers were left lying on the ground. But as the conservationists realised that the contractors were moving more equipment on to the site than had been agreed, the normally peaceful mood turned to anger. A dozen protesters were dragged from the road.

As 200 angry people met that evening to decide what to do next, a Tesco spokesman said: "We now hope that we can begin to build bridges with the local community and develop a more positive dialogue centred around job prospects and the other benefits that our store will bring." He said that Tesco had only bought a quarter of the land anyway - the rest was be landscaped. On the afternoon of August 14, protesters' screams and chants turned to an eerie silence as contractors moved in to saw down four of the 100-year-old lime trees in Kellaway Avenue. Last-ditch legal efforts to stop the development had failed at 1pm. Campaigners in the trees - some had been there for 24 hours - were told to come down for their own safety. After 84 days of protest the law was out in force.

Three hundred angry campaigners on the opposite pavement faced 100 police, including some on horseback.

Tesco then issued a statement saying that the trees would be replaced by 40 semi-mature limes and 20,000 other trees, shrubs and plants. The "Battle of Golden Hill" - a middle- class revolution - was over. Now it was time to go home.