Home to the Clifton Suspension Bridge, the first female doctor and hot air balloons, the next stop in the Gleeds journey brings us to Bristol.
Almost 100 years ago in 1927, Charles Crouch Southgate moves west from London to open up shop at our second home: 40 Corn Street, Bristol city centre.
He’s joined by 19 year old Alfred (Tony) Herbert Randell as his general assistant who was studying for his Professional Associate at the time, now known as the RICS. The city had little quantity surveying presence, with only one other firm and a few Indvidual surveyors who operated outside of London, meaning it was the perfect opportunity for an established firm. Whilst qualifying, Tony recalls the early years in Bristol with Southgate as “a hell of a struggle but, working all hours of the day and night, we grew and prospered”. He describes Southgate as “the quickest taker-off in the business and a wonderful man in every respect”.
The first sizeable project delivered by the Bristol office was the rebuild of the historic Bridewell Police and Fire Station in 1928, with its iconic bath stone stone exterior and yellow brick courtyard. The building still stands today and up until 2005 was a working police station and the headquarters for Bristol City constabulary. The building has since been used as a community arts centre, a hostel and now a specialist supported housing group for young people.
By the time of the outbreak of World War II, the Bristol office had many large and public sector clients such as the Wiltshire and Gloucester County Councils, the Bristol Corporation Education Committee and the Roman Baths committee. During the war itself, the Bristol office was heavily involved in contracts related to the war effort and the business started to expand rapidly, hectically trying to deliver projects and rebuild the city with very few qualified surveyors as most had military services to carry out. Despite this, Gleeds secured significant commercial work in the area on top of their local authority work, such as the rebuild of the Royal Hotel in Bristol, the Broadmead Shopping Centre and Rolls Royce and British Aerospace infrastructure in the 40’s.
Fast forward to the 1950’s, the Bristol office now employed twelve quantity surveyors, six juniors and five administrative staff alongside Tony Randell who took over the firm following Charles Southgate’s death in 1945. By the 1960’s the number of employees in the office reached over 100 and the team moved to new offices on Pembroke Road, Clifton.
In the 50’s and 60’s, Clive Browning became a partner in the Bristol office and is a key figure in not only Gleeds’ history but also the history and development of the wider industry. Clive had been making pioneering advancements in cost planning and published Building Economics and Cost Planning, a textbook which is widely accepted as the go to for cost planning and has been translated into dozens of languages.
By the 70’s and 80’s the office had grown significantly and new ones were being opened in the surrounding areas of Gloucester, Nottingham and Birmingham. Today, the Bristol office has around 150 employees and remains one of our most instrumental UK offices outside of London, helping to deliver large public sector projects, education centres and dozens of important cultural landmarks in the city. We’re immensely proud of our second ever office, and invite you to join us in celebrating the last 100 years of work, innovation and connection the Bristol office has paved for the rest of Gleeds.
