This week Gerry Brooke answers your questions about Bristol balloons, the Domesday book and the name Coldharbour

Could you tell me when Bristol first started making and flying balloons?

Sandra Reddy. Horfield.

Cameron Balloons, founded by Bristol balloon ace Don Cameron, was started in 1970.

At that time only twenty people in the whole country, including Don, held private pilots' licences to fly balloons.

His factory, a small affair, was in the basement of a house in Cotham Park.

As a member of the Bristol Gliding Club Don was part a group who, in 1967, built the "Bristol Belle" - the first modern hot-air balloon in Europe.

The first Bristol balloon "fiesta" or balloonist's get together - a very informal affair - took place at Ashton Court in 1979 with just 27 balloons.

If Bristol was founded, as you say, in Saxon times, why isn't it mentioned in the Domesday book?

Andy Durnford. Henleaze.

A good question.

Instead of an entry for Bristol - or "Brycstowe" as the Anglo Saxon Chronicle has it - we get one for Barton Regis, the name of one of the hundreds (large areas) into which Gloucestershire was divided.

This taxable amount of land - Domesday calls it "Bertune apud Bristou" (Barton, near Bristol) - was about six hides or about 650 acres.

But the fact that Bristol was mentioned at all in Domesday would suggest that it was significant enough a settlement to be used as a point of reference.

Bristol didn't get its castle until at least 1088AD, sometime after Domesday had been compiled.

The "Regis" tag tells us that the land hereabouts, between the Rivers Frome and Avon, was owned by the king.

Do you know what Coldharbour, as in the road name, means? I've been told that it's got something to do with the Romans.

Sarah Cody. Ashton.

A "Cold Harbour" was in fact a basic, uninhabited, roadside shelter for wayfarers.

Unlike an inn, there was no bed, food or drink.

But there was a roof, a door and sometimes a simple hearth, although it was the traveller's responsibility to gather wood for a fire.

Sometimes these "Coldharbours" - harbour is an old word for shelter - were little more than open-faced barns or animal shelters.

Rather than being of Roman origin the name is said to derive from the French, "Col d'arbre" - or ridge of trees - but why this should be so I just don't know.

A 14th century spelling, "Choldherberwe," suggests that the name could hark back to Saxon times.

But a definitive study in the 1960s would suggest the opposite - that the name is post 1600s.