A Profile of the Bristol Crocodile

If you have visited Underfall Yard to explore or enjoy the cafe, you may have wondered why a giant woolen crocodile resides in the Visitor Centre. Luckily, volunteer writer Isaac Barrett has been investigating that same question. Here are his findings…

Bristol has its fair share of mysteries. Whether it be a strange humming on the Downs, or the disturbing reasons behind the unnatural smoothness of the rock slide under the Suspension Bridge, the city seems to be harbouring a number of oddities under the surface.

This statement turns quite literal when it comes to perhaps the strangest of Bristol’s mysteries; the alleged sightings of a crocodile that lurks beneath the waters of the harbour.

The evidence for the existence of such a creature is, admittedly, limited. But isn’t it natural to feel a twinge of unease roaming the dark fields of Dartmoor for fear of a Hound? So should the paddleboarders and sailors who spend so much time on the waters of the harbour be similarly unnerved? Should there be a sense of urgency following a fall into the water, to get back above the surface quickly, for fear of hearing the water shift below, of feeling something brush against the feet?

Probably not. But I’ll tell you anyway.

The first sighting of the Bristol Crocodile, as it’s been creatively dubbed, was in February 2014. The story has become something of an urban legend on the harborside; a bus driver, on the Bedminster Roundabout, looked into his wing mirror to see a crocodile lurking in the waters behind him. After taking the bus to a commendably calm stop, he phoned the police to report the sighting, it was tweeted out to the public by Police Constable Nick Gargan, and the legend was born.

The Bristol public were suddenly on edge. They now gave the waters of the harbour a tentative glance as they passed by, wondering if they would really see a splash, a sudden movement, wondering whether all this time they had lived next door to a powerful, hungry reptile.

Indeed, the next sighting came a mere two days later, when Kelly Gray, mother of three, reported that she too had spotted the croc lurking beneath the harbour. Then a local councillor took the city by storm by releasing video footage seemingly confirming what had been on everybody’s minds for the past few days; it showed a crocodile moving through the water.

Cue fear. Cue headlines. Cue a film company creating a horror flick about crocs terrorizing the nearby Somerset Levels. News of it even reached America, which reported lightly about the reptile sightings in Britain’s most famous port city. The people of Bristol found themselves in the centre of a big mystery, and so were attracting a lot of national attention, people standing over the murky waters of the harbour, hoping to also catch a sight of the beast.

And then, it went quiet. People lost interest in the story, as is natural without a major plot twist.

Until, in June of that year, the story was reignited when Tamara Blanco, a local shop assistant, took a photograph of the city’s old friend.

Don’t be fooled by the log-like resemblance of the figure, crocodiles specifically evolved to look as such, so is it really surprising that is what the mind jumps to?

Tamara snapped the photo whilst jogging, and discussed how it was quite a harrowing moment.

“I could feel my hair start to stand on end and I thought: ‘Oh my God, is it a crocodile?’ and I just left the place.”

She later said; “I was running close to the suspension bridge and suddenly I saw something in the water. I had heard about a crocodile but that was a long time ago, so when I went home I checked on the internet and I saw that other people had seen it too.”

Facebook set alight that day, users taking pride in their theories being proved correct, with one user writing “TO ALL THE PEOPLE THAT SAID CROCODILES ARE NOT IN BRISTOL ——— I WAS RIGHT!”

That, however, was the last we really heard of the crocodile. People were talking about it, and then they stopped. We moved on. The story was told, and retold, and eventually faded into legend. And by legend, I am indeed referring to the internet.

There were still, however, some standout moments. When a baby caiman, a relative of the crocodile, was rescued from a nearby reservoir by the RSPCA in 2017, a slow pricking up of ears surged through Bristol, and it sparked up talk again about whether this was the legendary beast. However, since the Caiman comfortably fitted in the zookeeper’s hand in the recovery photo, this seemed quite an underwhelming answer.

As time went on, the mystery shrouding the creature lessened. Tamara’s original photo was discredited by Bristol University’s evolutionary biologist Dr Tom Stubbs, who said in 2021; “The image is almost definitely a fake crocodile, probably a remote-control plastic crocodile or alligator head.”

Today, the legend of the crocodile lives on in one form or another. You may have seen our knitted model at Underfall Yard Visitor Centre, created and provided by a fantastic local artist Vicky Harrison as part of her project “Crafting the City”.

Not only that, but Vicky was also the brilliant mind behind Briswool, an incredible knitted model of the entirety of Bristol, attracting 4000 visitors on it’s opening at the M-Shed.

So, the crocodile still survives. Perhaps it still survives in the flesh too, at the bottom of the harbour.

But most of all, it survives through myth. It survives through legend. Through conversation starters of awkward couples walking by the harbour on first dates.

And through the wary looks of long-time Bristol residents into the water, and the slightly wider berth they give to the murky, opaque surface.

 

You can find out more about Vicky here: https://www.southbristolvoice.co.uk/vicky-harrison

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