A converted stone building, that started life as a jail as long ago as 1740, and now Bristol’s best live music venue!

 

But then you may not be familiar with what the Cleary family have achieved since they bought the Willway Street premises in 1994

 

Fiddlers has achieved an enviable reputation as a venue for Live Bands, Weddings, Social and Business Celebrations and with a licence till 2am time becomes less of a problem.

 

And it provides capacity for 450 in it’s comfortable flexible and interesting combination of rooms.

 

At first glance it look like any other back street on any other side of town. There’s lines painted on the road, white and yellow. Just 5 minutes ago you walked across the putrid stench of the river and into an area that’s often referred to as ‘down there somewhere’. It seems South Bristol exists after all.

 

Bedminster’s near legendary music Mecca are the owners, the Cleary family: Peter, Christina and Son Daniel. They find this fear of southern territories somewhat irrational, mostly hilarious. ‘Don’t be frightened to get in a boat’.

 

Since the family purchased this former 18^th century prison in 1994; those seven cross-zonal minutes have become regular events for a gigging community not exactly renowned for its voyages of discovery. The Fiddlers ‘as in violin, not because we’ve got our hands in the till’ has played host to every generic lamppost around, from Robert Plant, Feeder, Buzzcocks, Therapy, Manu Chou, L7, Gillian Welch, Cheikh Lo, Nithin Sawhney, Lee Scratch Perry, Horace Andy, Eliza Carthy, Waterson Carthy, Oysterband, Magic Numbers, KT Tunstall, Delorus Keane to name just a small few.

 

Anyone who’s ever been will tell you that Willway Street BS3 houses arguably Bristol’s best mid-sized venue right now. In every sense Fiddlers is unique.