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.