Planting bulbs along Shirehampton Road last year gave us the opportunity to inspect the Kings Weston estate’s smallest Listed building. The milestone is easily missed as you hurtle along the road, and not much more obvious amongst the boulders as a pedestrian. It’s a low vertical marker not even 3ft in height, the rough pennant hewn into a shallow arched top. It’s most obvious feature is a cast iron plate on its road side announcing “To Briftol 4” (the ‘f’ is a now obsolete way of writing ‘s’). Grade II Listed, this stone is described as an 18^th Century milestone on Historic England’s register. So why is it there in the middle of the park?
 

Turnpike Trusts were an early way of ensuring major highways were kept in good order. Before their advent it was down to local parishes to upkeep roads; this saw far from universal care taken of the country’s network, each parish taking their own measures, or not at all. Tolls collected by Turnpike Trusts were ringfenced for the maintenance and improvement of the trunk roads in their care. Bristol’s Trust was amongst the earliest in the country, being initiated in 1727, and developed into one of the most extensive networks.

In 1758 Government passed an Act to enable the Trust to extend, taking on the roads to Shirehampton and the Pill ferry, and to the ferry across the Severn from Aust. It’s slightly unusual that an improved road to Shirehampton was such an early route, the village then being inconsequential and the area a rural destination. The Pill ferry may have given some justification for the improved route, but it’s possible the influence of the Southwell family was at play. The second Edward Southwell (1705-55) was elected MP for Bristol from 1739, and improved connections between Kings Weston and the city, and onwards from there to London, would have been in his interests. He already subscribed to the Trust.

The route to Shirehampton would pass through the Kings Weston estate, repairing and renewing the existing road to an improved standard, though surrounding landholders were expected to make contributions to such undertakings. The improvements opened out the north of Bristol and Shirehampton to “the fashionable throng at the Hot Wells” and throughout the 18^th Century fed an embryonic trade in tourism enjoyed from the attractions of Kings Weston house, parkland, inn, and the natural delights of Kingsweston Hill and Penpole Point. Whatever influence Edward Southwell might have had in the decision to extend the roads, he never lived to enjoy them. Dying in 1755 the estate was inherited by his son Edward still in his minority.
 
The Shirehampton Road milestone was one of the features added by the Turnpike Trust for the convenience of travellers. It might reasonably have been added after their network was extended through the park in the 1750s. The two lodges, Park Lodge and Shirehampton Lodge, were not to do with the Trust however. Returning from his Grand Tour of Europe in 1761 the young Edward Southwell (the third), was keen to reinforce the bounds of his park and the turnpike road was something of a hinderance in that. With the assistance of his architect, Robert Mylne, and landscape designer, Thomas Wright, he set out to mark its boundary with lodges and gates. These were never intended for the collection of tolls, but were a statement of ownership, the gates being closed perhaps by night, or for general control of vehicles and riders passing through the estate.  

The same year as his return to take command of his inheritance, the Turnpike commissioners received £30 from Southwell towards widening and ‘amending’ the road from Lamplighters hall and the Shirehampton towards Kingsweston. This may have involved the regrading of the present Park Hill.

A further Act, receiving Royal assent in 1819, added the route from Shirehampton to Gloucester, across Kingsweston Hill, to the Turnpike’s responsibilities. The route diverged from the original turnpike road at Park Lodge and, initially, adopted the road across the brow of the hill and past Kingsweston Inn before continuing towards Henbury. With the Trust’s objective to improve the roads in its care, the steep gradients up to the inn and down again were an urgent focus for works. Finding a solution was down to their chief engineer, Robert McAdam. We’ve previously looked at the history of the iron bridge in depth, but it’s worth noting the context into which its construction fits. In 1821 McAdam was engaged in work “lowering hill and building walls at Kingsweston Hill” , the cutting for which the bridge was required to span.

The tollgates were eventually removed from the Bristol network in 1867 and the roads passed to local highway authorities to maintain. At Kings Weston, we have two monuments, the bridge and the easily overlooked milepost, that stand testament to the benefits brought by the turnpike roads to local travellers and commerce alike; Would the Kings Weston estate have become so celebrated had they not permitted visitors such easy access?

One of the historic park lodges has just come on the market, albeit with some unconsented Listed building works along with it. Henbury Lodge was built to guard the park from the east, in the direction of the titular village. It’s not clear when it was built, possibly in the early 19^th Century by the Miles family who moved into Kings Weston in 1834, but was certainly not amongst the first influx of architect-designed lodges from the earlier Georgian period. It’s possible that Thomas Hopper, or Henry Rumsey, both architects employed on refurbishing Kings Weston house in the 1840s, could be responsible.

The original design was for a polite Regency style building, symmetrically designed with a pair of shallow arches at either end, and a parapet roof. This was later ‘got at’ in the 1860s by Philip William Skinner Miles who fancied himself as something of an amateur architect. He added the steep pitched roof and decorative bargeboards, something of a signature feature that survives on a number of other buildings on the estate.

Unfortunately, the symmetry that was retained by Miles from the earlier building was damaged with the stripping of the render off the façade in about 2010, just before KWAG was established. The lopsided appearance may be more rustic but detracts from the intended formal appearance.

The house is on the market with  Goodman & Lilley for £925,00. More details can be found here. 

Starting work restoring the Georgian lilypond has been a longstanding ambition of KWAG, and we finally got the opportunity in December. One of the issues we’ve faced has been that the pond and lodges don’t fall within the area managed by Parks, so insurance for our volunteers has been more difficult to agree through the Council’s Property team. Fortunately that hurdle was cleared late last year and a few hardy members began work just before Christmas.

There has been a, literally, growing issue of self-seeded trees taking advantage of the choked pond and lower water levels to establish themselves in the shallower margins. This was particularly apparent alongside Napier Miles Road where views across the pond had virtually disappeared last summer. Whilst our work felling these is only a stop-gap measure, and they will likely re-grow, it’s important to arrest their growth before they become too large for us to manage and permanently damage the pond fabric.

With the help of wellies and waders, and not without some wet encounters, we traversed much of the pond area, cutting down pretty much all of the sallow saplings and carrying the waste away to discrete locations on the other side of the road. The ivy and brambles clogging the wall and ramps leading into the pond were also tackled, reopening the whole area again for the first time in years.

Eventually, the reeds that remain will completely choke the pond, and there was little sign of open water encountered during works. It’s important for the ecology of the pond that the reeds are removed at some point, but that challenge was well beyond our immediate ambitions for the day.

We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who lent a hand last month; this was something more unusually challenging than our usual work, but the results really speak for themselves. We continue work behind the scenes to develop a rescue plan for the area and lodges.