Bristol Tools

Bristol Tools is a no nonsense store specialising in hand tools, but stocking a whole lot more. I bought a spade here for £6.99 the other day, and so can vouch for the affordable prices they charge. But it’s the sheer choice of products that impresses you most, many of which possess a latter day charm as well as a price tag to match. I’m sure that if I looked hard enough I’d find gold mining pans and twin handled lumberjack saws! If you can’t find it here, then you won’t get it anywhere else.
Services include key cutting and blade sharpening, although if you bought your tools from here you won’t need to use the latter so often. All of them are made using the finest steel and come replete, in most instances, with finely crafted wooden handles; there’s no shonky steel and badly matching plastic moulded handles at this store — you’ll have to go to Rajani’s for those.

The name doesn’t lie — the shop sells tools, for the DIY veterans and amateurs, and the passers-​by looking for basic items you’d expect to find in a hardware store. The shop is bright yellow so you’re sure to notice it and wish to take a peak at what’s inside. I did, and was shocked when I saw how cheap the batteries were! I’m not a DIY nut but I know good bargains when I see them.

I love the simplicity of this shop’s name: BRISTOL TOOLS in bold, capital letters. Keep it real at Bristol Tools, a nifty little hardware store that sells pretty much all of the tools under the sun at bargain prices. A few doors up from the Rosebud Florist, this store is the yin to the florist’s yang; it has a more abstract beauty to it, but a beauty all the same. Well I think so, anyway.

Much like the varnish they sell in their shop that does exactly as it says on the tin, if you need any tool in Bristol — Bristol Tools will have it.
Having been on the same corner since 1973 the guys in here are incredibly knowledgeable. Every bit of DIY and every odd job about the house has always led me here. One of the things that really sets this shop out above the rest for me is how it is customer focussed in every sense. Their priority is getting you what you need. If they don’t have what you want, for example, they’ll call other hardware shops in Bristol before ordering it in. If they do have to order it in, it’s always within 24 hours.
The guys here are also very proud that they haven’t ‘sold out’ to specialise in power tools. Like many businesses in the area they keep it traditional, local and very hands on.