We have been continuing our research into the history of Kings Weston and hunting down material from more and more obscure sources. This included a recent foray to Neath and the Neath Antiquarian Society where we discovered a pair of very interesting watercolour paintings.
The artist and date are unknown, but they are likely to date to the early Nineteenth Century, around 1800-1820. One is particularly interesting as it is the only known view of Kingsweston Inn from this period. Its early form is clear from the painting showing it with its central tower (viewing point?) before victorian modifications reduced it in scale and replaced it with a gable. It isn’t entirely clear in the artists depiction whether the cutting and iron bridge have been constructed, but this occurred in 1821 and the implication seems to be that these pre-date that.
The other painting, clearly the pair to the one of Kingsweston Inn, shows Park Lodge just below it on Shirehampton Road. The lodge there today, now a listed building, replaced this earlier cottage at the gates to the private parkland. We were delighted to be able to add to the catalogue description of this item for the Neath Antiquarian Society as this painting had lost any identification of it’s location, but is similar to another painting held in the Bristol Record Office.
Park Lodge, Shirehampton Road, c. 1800-1820. Courtesy of Neath Antiquarian Society
I absulutely love both these paintings. How on earth did you find them? What is the connection between Kingsweston and Neath? It’s such a long way away. Please continue to keep us informed
Hi Pat, It was Tim Denning who discovered the reference to them in an obscure on-line catalogue, but it has taken a while to make our way over to Neath to see them. They were in a portfolio of many other paintings, mostly poor quality ones, and then these two. Only the Kingsweston Inn one was titled, but the other, obviously its pair, was familiar from other paintings of the estate so we were able to add to the Neath Antiquarian Society’s records. As to how they ended up there, from the portfolio context I think they had just been idly collected by someone. We are always looking so though so hopefully something as exciting will come along in the future.