Meet a Community Champion: The Bristol Wing
Sawday's Expert
5 min read
The Bristol Wing, our first ever Community Champion, was established in 2013 with the aim of providing the city’s vulnerable young people with a safe space without relying on government funding. What was needed was some innovative thinking and a ground-breaking business model – and that's exactly what happened.
In the old Police HQ at the heart of town, a hostel arose in which the money from paying guests would be used to house young people who had nowhere else to go. It was bold, brilliant and, for a while, it worked perfectly. When we first visited and spoke to Nicky, the in-house chaplain, she told us how she could see the tension and fear drain out of young people when they were first given their own space. There was support, advice and communal feast nights cooked in which guests and volunteers brought food, cooked and ate together in the big, colourful kitchen. Hundreds of people who were so often alone in the world got to feel part of a community, even if it was just for one night.
Then came the pandemic. With the impact this had on travel and tourism, The Bristol Wing was forced to close its doors to the public in 2020, but they refused to give up their social mission. The building was sublet to the charity St Mungo’s and became safe housing for the homeless during a most difficult time. With this enforced hiatus came time for reflection and, when it was once again viable for the hostel to operate publicly, a new direction was taken.
The Bristol Wing now runs entirely as a hotel, but the art and architecture still retain a sense of its street-life past and the mission is far from over. Any and all surplus funds are channelled to YMCA Brunel Group, a dedicated charity that supports young people at risk in a variety of ways. The separation of the two means more focused care and attention on both the hotel side and, more importantly, the youth work, but there are still plans to fuse the two together again in the future, even if it’s just the return of the sociable feast nights.
For now, a stay here does everything a great city hotel should and more. You get to step out of your characterful and colourful surroundings, straight into the heart of downtown, but you also get to make a contribution. It’s a sense of circularity and community that we as a company value far more than thread counts and minibars. Quite simply, if there were more hotels like this, the world would be a better place.
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Christopher Wilson-Elmes
Sawday's Expert