With Maporilla due to settle into her new home in the coming days, we thought we'd look back at Bristol Zoo's Wow! Gorillas public art project with the help of photographer Clive Minnitt.

Clive has published The Gorillas Have Landed - a collection of images showcasing the 61 life-size ceramic gorillas displayed across Bristol during summer 2011, including Rebecca Howard's map-adorned creation - soon to be based at St Monica's Trust after being displayed at Stanfords.

Available at our Bristol store for £9.99, five per cent of the book's profits are being donated to Bristol Zoo's gorilla conservation project, while a further five per pent is going to the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children.

Here's a selection of Clive's photographs - aside from the Stanfords-commissioned Maporilla (thanks to Kevin Leighton for this image), how many of the five can you name? More...

Images Copyright Ben Wakefield

Stanfords has teamed up with Wilderness Lectures to bring travellers and explorers to venues in Bristol.

The Wilderness Lectures are a winter series of public talks in Bristol; the theme of which is worldwide adventure. The lecturers are well-known explorers, mountaineers, travel writers, TV and adventure sports personalities or anyone who has an epic story to tell and can entertain the audience with a good story. The talks usually include slides and/or film.

Wilderness Lectures tickets are available on the Stanfords website (up to 72 hours before each event) and in-store from the Bristol store, but regrettably not by phone. See the programme guide below for further details. More...

Following the success of the Wow! Gorillas Event in Bristol in summer 2011, Wild in Art has launched its Gorilla Collection - an exciting range of limited edition scaled-down ceramic replicas of the most popular exhibits.

Talk like a pirate with Blackbeardorilla, navigate Bristol's streets with Maporilla or celebrate Isambard Kingdom Brunel with Gorisambard. You can even create your own hand-finished ceramic with the Paint Your Own Gorilla set! More...

Following the roaring success of the Gorilla Trail in Bristol last summer a new life-size ceramic gorilla called 'Maporilla' has arrived at Stanfords Bristol .

Maporilla has been beautifully painted with a unique and colourful map of Bristol by artist Rebecca Howard who previously designed the Green Map for Alastair Sawday's book Bristol: A Guide to Good Living. Now that the painting of Maporilla is complete, we're offering you the chance to win the life size gorilla for your school or organisation! The winner will be notified just before Christmas – so plenty of time to make a bit of space! Second prize will be a small ceramic replica of Maporilla. More...

Stanfords have teamed up with Wilderness Lectures who bring travellers and explorers to venues in Bristol.

The Wilderness Lectures are a winter series of public lectures in Bristol, the theme of which is worldwide adventure. The lecturers are well-known explorers, mountaineers, travel writers, TV and adventure sports personalities or anyone who has an epic story to tell and can entertain the audience with a good story. The talks themselves usually including slides and/or film.

The tickets for this season of Wilderness Lectures are available on the Stanfords’ website and from our Bristol store. (up to 72 hours before each event) - see the programme guide below.

Wilderness Lectures Guide Winter 2011-12
Season tickets are no longer available. More...

To celebrate Bristol Zoo's 175th year, Stanfords is proud to be part of the Gorilla Trail this summer and the keeper of Crystal Eyes whose unique feature is his ability to 'glow in the dark'.

Come and be photographed alongside this handsome beast and pick up our own customised Gorilla Trail Memento Map, or perhaps a miniature hand-painted ceramic gorilla as a reminder of this wonderful event.

This world class event will showcase decorated life-size gorillas all around the city of Bristol, till the 7th of September 2011.

This event is to help raise awareness and enlighten all, of the plight of apes in the wild and raise significant funds to support gorilla conservation project. For more information about Bristol Zoo’s Wow! Gorilla project, please visit www.wowgorilla.org.uk. More...

Our manager of Stanfords in Bristol appeared on TV to defend the city’s river following a gaffe made by Strictly Come Dancing judge, Len Goodman.

Goodman has become well-known on the BBC TV series for always giving every competitor 7 out of 10 for their efforts, which led to presenter Bruce Forsyth sending him up on a recent show. Forsythe grilled Goodman with questions related to the number 7, such as, “How many dwarves did Snow White have?” However, one of the questions was, “Which river runs through the centre of Bristol?” And to the horror of the West Country, Goodman answered “Severn”. As we all know, it's in fact the Avon.

More...

We have given a new look to Stanfords in Bristol, marking the 10th anniversary of the shop.

The Stanfords store in Bristol was our first branch to launch outside of London and the doors were opened 10 years ago by the great travel writer Eric Newby.

The shop has now been entirely refitted to mimic the London Covent Garden store with walnut and silver furniture, and a combination of wooden floors and carpets. A new highlight is a 1:5000 map of Bristol covering the staircase wall from the ground floor to the basement, and Caroline Bowler, Stanfords Bristol shop manager, says, “This will be quite a talking point with customers as you are able to identify individual houses on the map.” More...