Kings Weston

The park at Kings Weston occupies a favourable site on a narrow ridge of land, commanding extensive views over the Bristol Channel and the River Avon. Both the house and the park were laid out in the 18^th century.

The entrance to Kings Weston House is by a former service drive from Kings Weston Lane which curves around the back of the House to reach its front on its south-western side. On the east side of the drive is the late-18th-century Home Lodge designed by Robert Mylne. There is a car park at the back of the house, as well as further car parking in a wooded area to the east of the drive.

To the north of the house is a brewhouse, and a loggia behind which were the remains of an earlier banqueting house/laundry. Both of these early-18th-century buildings were designed by John Vanbrugh and have been converted into private houses.

Opposite Home Lodge is Napier Miles Road which leads past an icehouse in overgrown land on its west side to the mid-18th-century stable block designed by Robert Mylne.

Opposite the stable block are two matching classical lodges, or gardeners' houses, and a central square pond set symmetrically within a walled garden. This composition was designed by Robert Mylne to echo the design of the stable block and is of the same date.

The former productive gardens were situated around this walled garden in further walled enclosures designed by Robert Mylne. Several of these (behind the garden with the pond) were used for the building of a dower house (which became known as The House In The Garden). This property is now used as a school and is outside the registered area of the park.

Napier Miles Road then leads north-east to the early-19th-century Henbury Lodge which marks the boundary with the Blaise Castle estate.

Echo Walk, a straight gravelled path, runs 300m uphill and south-east from the house to a former banqueting loggia known as the Echo, which was designed by John Vanbrugh and built about 1715. It is now roofless but stablilised.

To the either side of Echo Walk are woodlands containing some prominent 19th-century trees as well as 20th-century self-sown trees and scrub.

The area adjacent to the house on its south-east side has a lawn with marks of former planting beds either side of the Echo Walk for about 50 metres. The adjoining unmanaged woodland contains the bases and walls of uncompleted school buildings built just before World War 2.

A former carriage drive runs south-west from the front of the house through an informal double avenue of lime trees to meet a track (another former carriage drive) running east-west from The Echo to Penpole Point. The drive from the house continues on to reach Shirehampton Road.

The east-west track is an almost straight route of about 500 metres between narrow blocks of woodland and marks the southern boundary of the pleasure grounds.

Home Park Lawn, the roughly triangular area south of the house contained by Echo Walk and these two drives, is now a grassed open space.

The east-west track leads through an informal avenue of European limes dating from the 1700s westwards to Penpole Point which has wide views over the Bristol Channel and the River Avon. A viewing tower and breakfast lodge called Penpole Lodge was sited at the far end of the park at Penpole Gate about 1 km west of the House. The Lodge also served as an eyecatcher seen at the end of the tree-lined avenue from Kings Weston House, and was almost certainly designed by John Vanbrugh. It became a favoured destination for visitors to the park in the 18th century. Following vandalism which made it unsafe Penpole Lodge was demolished by Bristol Corporation in 1950.

A little to the west of the remains of the Lodge, on former common land, is a mid-17th-century compass. This was used by merchants to watch shipping movements on the River Severn and Avon. Ships would lie up in the safe anchorage of King Road, the gateway of the Port of Bristol, before attempting the difficult journey up the Avon to the quays in the city centre.

Penpole Wood runs along the ridge, and contains rows and a circle of lime trees of a similar age, mature and over-mature beech trees from the 1760s and indigenous and exotic planting, notably cedars, from 1870-90. This woodland is rather neglected and overgrown.

North-west and west of the house, overlooked by the terrace, is an area of woodland, formerly further terraces and gardens or orchards. This area is now somewhat overgrown with scrub.

Some 300 metres further to the north-west is The Tump, an open grassy island of high ground with young trees on the summit and now separated from Kings West Park by housing. The Tump is a survivor of the pre-1771 landscape and was an important eyecatcher, aligned on an axial vista from the house and terrace.

Most of the open parkland of Kings Weston Park lies south of Shirehampton Road about 350 metres south of the house, and is now known as Shirehampton Park. The largest part of this is owned by the National Trust and is let as as a golf course to the Shirehampton Park Golf Club. This contains extensive areas of young trees and scrub, and earth moving has been carried out to create the golf course.

Shirehampton Park is separated from the Kings Weston estate by Shirehampton Road and a loose avenue of trees on the north side of the road. Edward Southwell was involved in the deformalisation of the estate between 1750 and his death in 1755, principally through the felling and planting of trees in spots partly advised by Norborne Berkeley of Stoke Park. Isaac Taylor's estate plan of 1772 shows an extensive informal landscape.

There are three lodges at the entrances to Shirehampton Park. The two Park Lodges, which controlled traffic on the Shirehampton Turnpike as it passed through the Park, were almost certainly built to designs by Robert Mylne. However, the east lodge at Park Gates was rebuilt, probably about 1840. The third lodge is Wood Lodge on Penpole Lane.

The park continues to the north-east of the house onto Kings Weston Hill. This has a path running over the top of open, but increasingly scrub-covered downland to the Blaise Castle estate, between the ornamental plantations of Evergreens Wood, Southside Wood and Limekiln Wood on the slopes. Meandering paths are laid out in Evergreens Wood and provide framed views to Kings Weston House and Blaise Castle. These woods were planted and the drives and walks developed under the ownership of the Miles family from the 1830s-1840s.

The house is now in private ownership and is used for corporate and private events (including conferences and weddings), with offices on the upper floors and a cafe in a vaulted semi-basement room.

The parkland surrounding the house and that stretching from Penpole Point in the west to Kings Weston Hill and the boundary with the Blaise Castle estate in the east is public open space owned by Bristol City Council. The parkland to the south of Shirehampton Road (known as Shirehampton Park) is, however, a private golf course with no access apart from public footpaths.

The following is from the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest. For the most up-to-date Register entry, please visit the The National Heritage List for England (NHLE):

www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list

A mid to late C18 park, laid out with advice from Lancelot Brown, containing the remains of a formal layout dating from Sir John Vanbrugh's early C18 redevelopment of an earlier site.

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

The Kings Weston estate covers c 98ha and is located largely in the parish of Henbury, c 10km west of the centre of Bristol. It occupies a steep limestone spur which includes Kings Weston Hill and Penpole Point, commanding views over the Bristol Channel to the west and the Avon Gorge to the south and south-east. To the north-east the Kings Weston and Blaise Castle registered sites are contiguous and both are under the management of Bristol City Council. The historic boundary between the two shows that Evergreens Wood, Limekiln Wood, and Kings Weston Down to the north-east belonged to Kings Weston as well as land north to Henbury Lodge and east to Southside Wood as far as the rear of residences in the housing development to the east. The northern boundary is formed by fence lines and tracks. The eastern boundary is formed by the south side of Shirehampton Road and the rear of houses on the residential roads of the Sea Mills housing estate. The southern boundary is the edge of the Avon Gorge at the southern end of Shirehampton Park. The south-west boundary runs to the rear of buildings on Park Road and Park Hill, along a path between a public cricket ground and the playing fields of Shirehampton School, and extends westwards along Penpole Lane, on the edge of the wooded ridge to Penpole Point. The north-west boundary is defined by the rear of houses on Mancroft Avenue as far as Kings Weston Lane, the rear of the former stables in Napier Miles Road, and the rear of the properties in Lawrence Weston. Apart from the part-wooded and part-open country of Kings Weston Down to the north-east and the deeply incised Avon Gorge to the south the estate is on a relatively level plateau which falls away steeply to C20 housing developments to the north and west. To the east the land falls gently to the extensive C20 housing estates of Combe Dingle, Sea Mills, and Westbury-on-Trym.

Physically separated from the main estate but included in the land here registered is the Tump, a c 3ha open grassy island of high ground c 300m north-west of the House. The Tump is bounded to the north-west by a fence to school grounds and on the other three sides by the gardens of houses on Barrowhead Drive and Badenham Grove.

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES

The entrance to Kings Weston House is via a 50m former service drive from Kings Weston Lane to the north-east, which enters a car park north-east of the rear elevation of the House. On the east side of this entrance is Home Lodge (Mylne late C18, listed grade II). The car park is enclosed 30m to the north and north-east by a range of garden and service buildings including The Loggia and remains of the Laundry (Vanbrugh c 1718, listed grade I), and the Brewhouse (Vanbrugh c 1715, listed grade I). A solitary gatepost (c 1760, listed grade II) stands 15m south of the Brewhouse and marks a former entrance to the House. Opposite and north-east of the Home Lodge entrance is Napier Miles Road which leads north-east past the Icehouse (C18, listed grade II) in a wooded bank 80m north of the House and the former Stable Block (1763, listed grade II*) c 180m to the north-east. On the opposite, south-east side of Napier Miles Road are the lodges, pond, and garden walls of the former kitchen garden (1763, listed grade II*) c 150m north-east of the House, now belonging to The House in the Garden. The road leads c 600m north-east to Henbury Lodge (c 1820-40), which marks the junction with the Blaise Castle estate (qv).

PRINCIPAL BUILDING

Kings Weston House (1710-25, listed grade I), designed by Vanbrugh, is located on the western edge of a south-west to north-east ridge and commands wide views over the Bristol Channel and the Welsh Hills. Foreground views have changed dramatically in the C20 with the development of the industrial complex at Avonmouth and the housing estate of Lawrence Weston. Work on the building started in 1714 following the demolition of the Elizabethan house and took more than a decade to complete. Vanbrugh was working on Castle Howard, Yorkshire (qv) and Blenheim, Oxfordshire (qv) at the same time as Kings Weston which was not finished by the time of his death in 1726. The severe Baroque style of the House and garden buildings may have been regarded as old-fashioned by the time it was completed as fashion had changed significantly in favour of the purely Palladian (Georgian Group Ann Rep 1985). Significant internal alterations were carried out by Robert Mylne (1764-75).

GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS

Some 30m north of the House, The Loggia terminates a terrace (late C19, replacing 1720s terrace, removed c 1770s) which runs c 100m south-west along the length of the north-west front of the House and continues for 300m through an informal double avenue of lime trees to meet a track running east/west from the Echo to Penpole Point. The terrace was formerly balustraded for most of its length, and some dressed stone remains in evidence on the ground. Lancelot Brown was paid £84 by Edward Southwell III for 'Alterations about the House and Terras' (Pearson Asocs 1994), work probably completed in the early 1770s and commented upon by Thomas Wright in 1776. North-west and west, extending c 70m below the House terrace, is an area of woodland, formerly further terraces and gardens or orchards.

Some 300m further to the north-west is The Tump, an open grassy island of high ground with young trees on the summit and now separated from Kings Weston Park by housing, which is included within the area here registered. The Tump is a survivor of the pre-1771 landscape and was an important eyecatcher, aligned on an axial vista from the House and terrace.

The east/west track, a former carriage drive c 250m south of the House, provides an almost straight route of c 500m between narrow blocks of woodland and describes the southern edge of the pleasure grounds. To the west the track leads 1km through an informal avenue of European limes (c 1700s) to Penpole Point which has views of the Bristol Channel. A viewing tower and breakfast lodge, after designs by Colen Campbell (1723) and Vanbrugh, at Penpole Gate, c 1km west of the House, was demolished by Bristol Corporation in 1952. Penpole Woods contain other rows and a circle of limes (c 1700s), mature and over-mature beech trees (c 1760s), and indigenous and exotic planting, notably cedars, from c 1870-90. In an easterly direction the track passes through woodland at the southern edge of Home Park Lawn and bends northwards for 100m to the Echo (Vanbrugh c 1715, listed grade I), a former banqueting loggia 300m south-east of the House, now roofless but stabilised, which faces north-west and is aligned to the south-east front of the House. A straight gravelled path of 300m, Echo Walk, runs uphill and south-east from the House to the Echo through woodland containing some prominent C19 trees and C20 self-sown trees and scrub. The area south-east of, and adjacent to the House has a lawn with marks of former planting beds either side of the Walk for c 50m. The unmanaged woodland contains the bases and some walls of the uncompleted school buildings. This area was laid out in the early C18 as elaborate parterres within walled garden enclosures, of which nothing visible remains. The roughly triangular area contained within the tracks south of the House, Home Park Lawn, is used as playing fields and maintained as amenity grassland (2002).

PARK

Most of the open parkland of Kings Weston Park lies south of Shirehampton Road, c 350m south of the House, and is now known as Shirehampton Park, the largest part of which is let by the National Trust to Shirehampton Golf Club. This contains extensive areas of young trees and scrub and earth-moving has been carried out to create the golf course. Shirehampton Park is separated from the Kings Weston estate by Shirehampton Road and a loose avenue of trees on the north side of the road. Memoranda show that Edward Southwell was involved in the deformalisation of the estate between 1750 and his death in 1755, principally through the felling and planting of trees in spots partly advised by Norborne Berkeley of Stoke Park, Avon (qv) (Pearson Assocs 1994). Robert Mylne continued to be employed at Kings Weston from 1763 until at least 1772, probably designing the classical Shirehampton Lodge 450m south-east of the House at the former entrance, now a public highway, to the then newly enlarged park. Isaac Taylor's estate plan of 1772 shows an extensive informal landscape. Kings Weston Hill, c 500m to the north-east of the House, has a path running over the top of open, but scrubbing-up, downland to the Blaise Castle estate between the ornamental plantations of Evergreens Wood, Southside Wood, and Limekiln Wood on the slopes. Meandering paths are laid out in Evergreens Wood and provide framed views to Kings Weston House and Blaise Castle. These woods were planted and the drives and walks developed under the ownership of the Miles family (c 1820-40s).

KITCHEN GARDEN

The former productive gardens, now part of a school named The House in the Garden, are located on the south-east side of Napier Miles Road, c 150m north-east of the House, opposite the former stables. Built in 1763 to designs by Robert Mylne, the garden is of symmetrical plan around a central square pond, surrounded by rubble and ashlar walls c 4m high. There are two matching classical lodges, or gardeners' houses, in the north and west corners of the walled garden. There are further walled enclosures on the same axis to the south-west and north-east, the latter containing glasshouses against the south-west-facing wall. The school, school grounds, and residences south-east of the walled garden are excluded from the site here registered.

REFERENCES

R Atkyns, The Ancient and Present State of Gloucestershire (1712)

J P Neale, Views of the Seats... II, (1819)

Country Life, 6 (11 November 1899), pp 592-7; 61 (30 April 1927), pp 680-7; 113 (23 January 1953), pp 212-15

R Cooke, West Country Houses (1957)

N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: North Somerset and Bristol (1958, reprinted 1979), pp 469-70

Architectural History 10, (1967)

Georgian Group Annual Report (1985)

Avon Gardens Trust Newsletter 3, (1988)

N Kingsley, The Country Houses of Gloucestershire, Volume One, 1500-1660 (1989), pp 115-17

Kings Weston: Historic Landscape Survey & Management Plan, (Nicholas Pearson Associates 1994)

S Harding and D Lambert, Parks and Gardens of Avon (1994), pp 20-2, 41-2, 64

Maps

Kings Weston Estate map, 1720 (British Library) [reproduced in Pearson Assocs 1994]

Isaac Taylor, Kings Weston Estate map, 1772 [reproduced in Pearson Assocs 1994]

Isaac Taylor, Map of Gloucestershire, 1800 [reproduced in Pearson Assocs 1994]

Tithe map for Henbury parish, 1841 (Bristol Records Office) [reproduced in Pearson Assocs 1994]

OS 6" to 1 mile:

1st edition published 1887

1921 edition

Illustrations

J Kip, Kings Weston, the seat of Edward Southwell Esq (in Atkyns 1712)

Sir John Vanbrugh, Kings Weston House, 1713, in Kings Weston Book of Drawings (see Architect Hist 1967)

James Stewart, The front view of Edward Southwell Esq's Seat at Kings Weston, 1746 (Bodleian Library, Oxford Ms Gough Somerset 8, folio 36)

S H Grimm, Kings Weston Drawings, 1788 (Kaye Collection, British Library)

All the above and many more illustrations are reproduced in Nicholas Pearson Associates (1994)

Description written: November 2002

Register Inspector: SH

Edited: September 2003