Last October volunteers from KWAG, along with families from around the estate, came up for our 7th annual Big Bulb Plant. Our target was to plant over 8000 daffodil bulbs on The Centre. This are was the historic heart of the landscaped parkland, and remains the focus of the paths and avenues crossing the estate today.
The October event was our most popular yet, and the bulbs have now burst to life in dramatic fashion! The whole are is now richly golden with a dense field of flowers and are proving quite an attraction. The daffodils can be seen far across the park, appearing in views up the main avenues, from the lawns around the house, and from the path from the public car park on Shirehampton Road.
It’s difficult to imagine that just a few years ago this same area was a deep jungle 8 feet deep in brambles and hemmed-in with invasive cherry laurel. KWAG volunteers have gradually cleared the area and have been methodically keeping on top of regrowth since then. The flowering of the bulbs marks a huge landmark in reversing the tide of neglect and enhancing the parkland.
Sir Robert Southwell by Godfrey Kneller. Circa 1675.
Another interesting artefact that’s appeared in auction recently is this Seventeenth Century document; it’s the warrant appointing Sir Robert Southwell to be ambassador to the Elector of Brandenburg in modern day Germany. The warrant was issued in 1679, the same year as Sir Robert had bought Kings Weston and was in the process of moving his family there. He’d been keen to retire from life in King Charles II’s court following his wrongful implication in a Catholic plot. Court life had become fraught with intrigue and Sir Robert was eager to step away from it. He’d had a distinguished career, but ahead of his permanent move to Kings Weston resigned all his court positions, but the King maintained his trust in a faithful servant and entrusted him with an important diplomatic mission “for the purpose of promoting our friendship and diplomatic relations in accordance with our mutual wishes”.
Sir Robert regretfully accepted the instruction from the king, but it’s interesting that the warrant describes him as “our faithful and diligent servant”, indicating the regard and trust placed in him by the monarch. The mission was connected with a scheme to construct an alliance against France, and it took Southwell to the prince of Orange, the future King William III, and the court of Brunswick–Lüneburg. His onward progress to the Brandenburg Court at Potsdam was curtailed due to plague in the city and Sir Robert gladly returned home to Kings Weston where his family waited.
It was his contact with William of Orange that no doubt put him in good stead when William came to the English throne in 1689. Abandoning his retirement he re-entered court life and was quickly appointed Secretary of State to the Kingdom of Ireland; a position that was to prove important for subsequent generations of the Southwell family. The friendship between the men was affirmed when the King was entertained overnight at Kings Weston when the pair returned from Ireland and the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
Engraving showing King William’s arrival at the mouth of the Avon and progress to Kings Weston house.
The document is on velum with an engraved border, but the text is hand written, and at the foot it’s signed “Carolus R” by the king. Possession of the document conferred protection and total freedom as the King’s agent and ordered that he “shall not be dealt with in any way violently or unkindly”.
Sir Robert was amongst the best travelled courtiers of the age and his travels can be tracked on this map . The warrant is an important document that tells us not only of his importance to the government, but also something of his relationship with King Charles. It’s also significant in being his final commission before his planned retirement to his new estate at Kings Weston.
A recent auction’s turned up a new painting of Kings Weston. Showing the celebrated view south from the Shirehapton Park portion of the estate it dates from 1880; before the Portway spoiled the scene. The watercolour is by Alfred Edward Parkman (1852-1930) who was a prolific local artist specialising in views of historic Bristol, but here he strays out of the city and records the panoramic landscape view above the Avon.
The area where Sea Mills now stands is open fields, but the railway, opened in 1865, already makes its mark through the scene before winding unseen in a cutting immediately below the artist. The pines on the left were the remnants of a plantation first planted in the early 1700s and were a popular local landmark until they were felled in about 1919 for the Portway. The whole of the area of grassland seen here in the foreground would be entirely quarried away with the coming of the road, and the extensive civil engineering contributed heavily to the road remaining one of the most expensive per-mile ever attempted in the UK. The image has already been added to the Know Your Place website at the location it was painted.
Kings Weston Park, 1880, Alfred Edward Parkman (1852-1930)
