Author Archives: David Martyn

Kings Weston Garden City – A forgotten dream

Four years ago we wrote a piece on the Garden City aspirations of the last private owner of Kings Weston estate, Philip Napier Miles. Now further evidence has come to light that show his enthusiasm for innovations in town planning and promoting the development of his lands for socially progressive housing

Philip Napier Miles and his French Bulldog, Hippo in the library at Kings Weston in 1926

From the moment he inherited the estate from his father in 1881 Napier Miles seems to have been keenly focussed on making the best provision for his tenants and building new homes and facilities for their benefit. Beginning with new streets in Avonmouth he set out some of the best workers housing in the city, before becoming an early adopter of the revolutionary principles of the Garden City movement for new building. The movement promoted the idea that bringing together the best features of the town and countryside would provide the working class with an alternative to farm working or crowded unhealthy cities. All industry, housing, commerce could be provided interspersed with generous greenspace and allotments, and with key facilities to support education and social development.

Miles’s initial project to create a new city around Avonmouth began around 1902 but faltered despite having achieved a lot of high quality new building there.  A smaller endeavour was endowed with land at a beneficial rate in Shirehampton in 1910: the Bristol Garden Suburb. Another ambitious plan for development was promoted by Miles in 1917 for the land immediately below Kings Weston house where the Lawrence Weston estate lies today. The main emphasis of the plan was to provide urgently needed housing for labourers at the recently built national Smelting Company zinc works in Avonmouth, and serve the urgent wartime demands. A Public Utility Society was created in partnership with the management of the zinc works, Ernest Bevin of the Dock Worker’s Union, Napier Miles, and other local dignitaries and business owners formed a committee.

A diagram showing the scale and distribution of  Napier Miles’s Garden City projects 


On the 15th May the committee met to discuss plans. Napier Miles provided a venue for a meeting between interested parties, under one of the giant beech trees in the garden of Kings Weston house. Ewart Culpin of the Garden City & Town Planning Association, a figure of national importance, provided a sketch layout of a 271 acre estate which, it was projected, could accommodate around 2000 homes for up to 150 thousand people. The plan was set out on Garden City principles with emphasis on green spaces totalling around 60 acres, and tree-line avenues, along a central spine road that approximated todays Long Cross.  Progressive public and social facilities such as communal kitchens, wash houses,  & laundries were designed in, along with land for a Trades Hall, schools and a hospital. On the western part of the estate were planned the social and educational centre, the church, schools, and other public buildings. A theatre, concert hall, Swimming pools gymnasium & allotments were also projected. It was described as having “more of the elements of a real garden city than in any other proposal since Letchworth”

The 1918 published sketch of the plan for Kings Weston Garden City, unfortunately with the house hidden in the fold between pages. The houses that were completed are on the far west side. 

Co-operation was an imbedded feature of the organisation. Tenants were to become shareholders in the scheme with a vested interest in the estate. Napier Miles “in alluding to his sympathy with this movement, said he had strongly opposed the erection of buildings of such a nature and would in a few years become slums” and the design of new houses ensured good space, light, and access to generous gardens.

Edwart Culpin, 1877-1946  president of the Town Planning Institute

The following year the first of the new houses had been completed at the far west end of the estate on Kingsweston Avenue. These were built with the financial support of the Ministry of Munitions who had large mustard gas factories and shell production at Chittening, the National Smelting Company having to step-in in 1919 to complete 150 of the dwellings. These dwellings were more utilitarian than most Garden City architecture, possibly through the necessities of the wartime situation, but enjoyed being interspersed between the existing mature trees of the estate, and were well built and spacious. Stone was supplied from a reopened quarry on Penpole Point and brick from sand dug nearby. The quarry was to become a rock garden in the final scheme, and the cavity left by the sand pit a swimming pool.

Kingsweston Avenue photographed during construction in 1918.

After the cessation of hostilities, and the closure of the mustard gas factory, the urgency of the endeavour dissipated. The ambitious plan set out across the whole of the Kings Weston parkland was quietly abandoned only part realised, like Napier Miles’s previous Garden city projects. By this time his interest had already been diverted to Sea Mills where Bristol Corporation sought to develop their own garden suburb on his land, and the development of the Kings Weston Garden City was quietly dropped. What had been built was eventually purchased by the council in 1924.   

Looking down on the first houses from Penpole Point, circa 1919. The quarry in the foreground was reopened specifically to provide building material for the Garden City. 

As a postscript to the Kings Weston Garden City plan, it’s interesting that after the end of WWII attention focussed again on the area, and new plans drawn up that were not dissimilar from those of 1917. Certainly the outline plan of an elongated estate, covering a similar area to Culpin’s original plan were closely comparable, along with the general alignment of some roads. The ambition to provide high quality workers housing, with generous green space and well-integrated community and social facilities was also fundamental to the Council planner’s proposals, though regrettably without the swimming pool, theatre, and hospital that were intended to augment the original plan!

A copy of a contemporary 1918 account of the Garden City can be viewed here: https://mcusercontent.com/d6754e0d3b18e9a31be2d62e5/files/df84c99a-aefe-509b-d2e6-7a0e1dfb2210/Binder1b.pdf

A drawing by Samuel Loxton looking west along Kings Weston Avenue, towards Lower High Street.


The RAF at Kings Weston

During WWII Kings Weston house was requisitioned from the trustees of Bristol Municipal Charities by the Government. It’s been difficult to establish exactly what was happening at this time, both in the parkland and particularly in the mansion itself. With the obvious need for secrecy at the time there are scant records of what was going on. The concrete bases of Nissan huts along the South Walk remain the most tangible reminder of wartime use, but occasionally things turn up that add more to our knowledge; Such a new addition appeared just recently.  

Front and inside of the 1944 RAF Christmas card from Kings Weston house. 
Evidence that the Navy Sea Transport Office were using the mansion in 1941

A Christmas Card, of all things, now established the RAF at Kings Weston. An odd thing to find during wartime privations, the card includes the embossed crest and motto, “”through adversity to the stars”, on the front with stylised blue sky and clouds as a background. The inside includes the printed address of the RAF and Kingsweston House, Shirehampton and helpfully the date 1944, towards the end of the war.
 
Whilst a lovely find, this adds further confusion to how the house was being used. We’ve already found evidence of Navy officers and the army working here, but this adds another service! If anyone can shed light on what was happening here we would welcome it.

Army troops lined up on the front steps of Kings Weston during WWII. Note how the windows were protected. 


Reimagining the lost formal gardens 

We’ve been working on a better understanding of the formal gardens between the house and Echo as they were first designed. We’ve explored them using a 3D computer modelling. This allows us us to integrate the modern topography of Kingsweston Hill with the known historic plans and illustrations of the garden, bringing a new perspective on their original appearance. Whilst it’s important to make sure that the plans and terrain are modelled to the correct scale,  an understanding of how the gardens evolved has been essential in recreating them.

An engraving of the garden side of the house in about 1720, with modern colourisation. Source unknown.


We know that in 1716, when Edward Southwell, Neddy, moved with his second wife into the new Kings Weston house for the first time, the gardens in which it sat were little changed from when his father had laid them out in the 1680s around the previous building. Sir Robert, his father, possibly following advice from his good friend John Evelyn, created a series of formal gardens that led up the side of Kings Weston Hill, terminating at the garden wall against Kings Weston Lane; the lane was later realigned but its earlier route passed directly behind the Echo building. Between the wall and the house, the gardens were separated in the European model, into three compartments, a traditional sequence of parterre garden, ‘wilderness’ garden, and formal grove. Two of these gardens are shown in the famous engraving of the house published by Johannes Kip in about 1711, but the third was probably omitted for artistic licence and a greater focus on the mansion itself. Certainly, the formal grove was in place in 1720 when all thee of the series are illustrated on an estate plan.

Two of the three likely gardens at Kings Weston shown in Johannes Kip’s c.1711 engraving. 

The three gardens represented an ordering of nature, with this being most strongly expressed in the ornamental parterres closest the house, gradually becoming less formal through each subsequent section, but all connected by a rigid axial path and symmetrically arranged on each side. Each of the gardens was walled-in from the park beyond, so largely isolated from the landscape outside of their narrow parameters – an idealised microcosm of nature.

Closest to the house, the parterres were intended to be the showiest part of the garden. Once planted with rare and unusual specimen plants, manicured ornamental shrubs, and probably flowering bulbs, by 1720 they appear to have been greatly simplified. The expense of maintain such an intricate garden, particularly while the house was a building site, must have been difficult and expensive, and as much evidence as we have suggests it was laid simply as lawn at this date.  

Gardens like that at Wilton House, Wiltshire from the 1630s set the Continental model for gardens that houses like Kings Weston followed.  

The wilderness garden, the second compartment, was far from what we’d imagine today, a wild unkempt area, but instead it was a geometrically planned series of compartments formed with dense evergreen hedges. These were set out either side of the Echo path and incorporated secluded saloons linked by radiating pathways. Like the famous Hampton Court maze these hedges were maintained at a regular height and profile and were as much an expression of enlightenment order as the parterres. We might assume that the open saloons in this part of the garden were provided with focal points, perhaps the lead statues of Jupiter and Vesta that were later transported to the family estates in Downpatrick by 1749. This garden was planted with evergreens, with yew and holly being popular species for form dense hedges and winter interest. Writing in 1785, Malesherbes described the gardens;

“planted with varied and beautiful trees, but still young, the “allées francaises” having been changed only fourteen years since. A great number of old trees which comprised them have been preserved with great art.”

The allées francaises referred to are the regular paths in this and the final part of the garden, a design that had originated on the Continent. It’s likely that the surviving ancient holly tree beside the Echo Path, and perhaps some of the yews nearby, are the same trees that once formed the wilderness garden.   

Detail of William Halett’s estate plan of 1720, showing the three garden compartments surviving from an earlier era.

 The last of the three gardens was a formal grove, or rather four groves, each planted with a star shaped radiating pattern of trees. This would have provided a shady place to walk during the summer months, and may also have been decorated with statues or other architectural features at key points. At the time of the 1720 estate survey it’s not clear how the garden terminated against the boundary wall at its southern extent. The Echo pavilion is part of a series of buildings added only after that date, but it would be extraordinary if there were no focal point to attract the visitor’s eye. The survey suggests that there may have been some sort of raised terrace with ramped access down either site that would have enjoyed elevated views back towards the house and to the Severn Beyond, but this is only speculation.

A view across the front of Kings Weston House with the three garden compartments stretching out along the path to the Echo. 

After the publication of the 1720 estate plan, Neddy Southwell returned to his architect, Sir John Vanbrugh, and commissioned a series of new garden buildings to ornament his estate. The new works included the Echo and Kings Weston Inn on the hill beyond, both from around 1724-28. As part of our reconstruction these buildings have been inserted into the earlier garden layout. Also modelled is the original profile of Kings Weston Hill, much higher behind the Echo than today, with 30 feet of rock removed a decade later mound of Kings Weston Hill between them as it was before being quarried away in 1731. What’s immediately apparent is how prominent the Inn would have been, enjoying a belvedere position looking across the gardens, with a central tower that was, no doubt, used as a viewing platform. Another striking feature is the impact of the original hill profile behind the Echo, and how it dominated the Echo in front of it, no doubt one reason behind it’s expensive and laborious removal. Although the view is changed today, it’s still possible to imagine the urns on the Echo once creating an ornamental silhouette against the sky, and whilst the was Vanbrugh’s original ambition, the hill beyond robbed the Echo of its full impact for a number of years.  

The reconstructed view from the Echo, with the aligned views through one of the formal groves of trees and the central axial path framed within Vanbrugh’s arches. A statue may have ben an eyecatcher in the centre of the grove. 

Modelling the original gardens in 3D also reveals another intriguing aspect of the design. When viewed from within the Echo, each of the three arches framed a different view. The central arch remains aligned on the path to the house today, but the outer arches appear to relate to the tree-lined paths radiating out into the formal groves.  

It’s unlikely, of course, that we will ever know exactly how the gardens looked, felt, or smelled, but in putting together the evidence we can at least get a sense of them in their prime. The scene today it different, with maturing woodland and new formal gardens on the south of the house. Although the Echo remains, as a focal point of the original design , there are no plans to turn the clock all the way back to the 1720s.

Looking up towards the Echo from the wilderness garden. The line of the hill behind is higher than it is today, and Kings Weston Inn on the left is no longer visible behind trees. The formal groves of trees are planted on the rising ground beyond the end of the wilderness garden. 
A statue may have stood in the centre of the largest  of the wilderness garden saloons. The lost brick-built orangery stands beyond. 

Gold rush on the Echo path

There’s always a long wait to see whether our annual Big Bulb Plant pays off. In October last year we planted thousands more daffodils on the path to the Echo from the house and we’ve been waiting expectantly to see the results. A bit behind flowering compared with previous year’s planting it’s just come into its prime, and the results are pretty sensational!

The house with its new foreground of Spring gold



The flowers now form a beautiful Spring welcome into the park from the house car park, attractive foreground interest to both the house and the Echo, and an eye-catching sight across the lawns. Since we cleared most of the bramble and nettle roots out from the area it’s left it rather bare below the bulbs, so we’ve scattered grass seed across the area to take over when the flowers die down.   

The Echo path, now lined with flowers. 
Daffodils now welcome visitors from the Woodland car park onto the lawn. 


Join us on our Shirehampton Walking Tour

The history of the village of Shirehampton is inextricably linked to the Kings Weston estate. A new Conservation Area character appraisal has recently been adopted by the council, almost doubling the area now protected by the designation and setting out its historic character and significance. In celebration of this relaunch of the Conservation Area we are planning to give a guided tour of “the village” taking in all of the old, and newly added, areas as well as a generous helping of Kings Weston history.

The walk will be led by our Chair, David Martyn, and take place on Saturday May 27th. The walk will cost £7 per person, with all proceeds going towards KWAG’s work on the parkland. The tour will set off from Lamplighters car park on Station Road at 2pm and take around 2 hours. It will take in everything from regal arrivals at Lamplighters to the Georgian Green, look at the fascinating history of the Bristol Garden Suburb as well as many of the historic buildings surviving in the area.

If you’d like to join us on this walk you will need to book a place as numbers need to be limited. If there is enough interest we will keep a stand-by list and possibly schedule another in the future.  

KWAG members like you have preferential booking before wider advertising of the event, so book your ticket head over to booking website. Please check out our poster  and if you have anywhere to put one up please let us know.

Baroque pieces of “pott”

Recent visitors will have seen that the daffodils across the estate are braced for a good show this year, including those freshly planted on the Echo path in October last year. As part of the work preparing the ground for that planting we had to deal with a large block of masonry, dumped there when the gardens were refurbished a few years ago. The block had been used as a base for one of the large stone balls, but had since been discarded and forgotten, however it has an interesting history.

A 3D scan of the block. An interactive version of the model can be found here.  

One of the contract drawings for an urn for the parapet of Kings Weston house with similar gadroon decoration to the base

During the clearance work in October the block needed moving. It clearly had part of an historic carved stone element incorporated within it, but much was actually brick and concrete added when it was utilised for the stone balls. We broke away the modern accretions and we were left with a roughly circular stone slab with deeply defined gadrooning around the edge. Some of this had been badly damaged over the years, but enough is left to aid understanding of where it might have come from.
 The form of the stone tells us that it was once part of an ornamental urn, or “potts” as they are referred to in contemporary documents. Similar urns are set up across the roofline of Kings Weston house, but this one would have been significantly smaller than those. The stone measures exactly 2 feet in diameter at its widest point, but is missing both the base or pedestal, and the main drum of whatever stood above. There is a staining on the upper surface of the stone showing that whatever sat upon it had a diameter of about 14 inches, set back from the ornamental edge by some distance. In the base there remains part of whatever fixing attached it to the base, and in the top surface there is a rectilinear hole that would have received the fastening for the top section. We’ve recorded the stone using a 3D scanning app and made it available here. The stone is likely to be Dundry stone, or possible a limestone from the Bath area, easily carved unlike the hard local Penpole Stone. The facades of the house use both local and imported types according to their ease of working.

Another of the complete urns with markedly similar features to the fragment, albeit at a larger scale. 

Another of the complete urns with markedly similar features to the fragment, a
From its distinctive design we can be certain the fragment dates to the Baroque era of English architecture, perhaps between 1700 and the 1720s; this period obviously covers the time when the house was rebuilt and many of the garden buildings erected, but there’s a possibility that it might pre-date this work that began in 1712. The well-known engraving of Kings Weston published by Johannes Kip in about 1711 is peppered with urns and finials on gate piers and ornamental buildings. Of these structures the most densely forested with potts was the long-lost orangery. We believe this was built in around 1705, demolished probably in the 1760s, and is one contender for having been the source of the stone in question.

The orangery located on a detail of the 1711 engraving of the house

Another possible source is the house itself. We know that the Garden Front of the house once had another pair of urns mounted on the central pediment of that frontage. The design of those urns is unclear, but the most accurate depiction of them comes from 1724 and shows them as smaller than the other potts that ornament the parapets. If the detail is correct, then the stone could have made one of the top sections maybe, with the gadrooning being the widest section. However, the engraving is a measured scale drawing, and even these smaller urns would be 3 feet across, larger than the recovered stone.

One of the lost smaller urns on a 1724 engraving of the house’s Garden Front
1718 design for the Loggia with sketched ornaments on the pediment

However, the strongest candidate for the source is the Loggia, built in 1718 to the north of the house, and thankfully still with us. This little Vanbrugh-designed frontage was grafted onto an existing banqueting house and several original drawings of it exist. A couple of these drawings have urns and a statue applied to the plinths mounted on top of the pediment, both are inexpertly drawn, added in a different ink and with a lack of realism betraying them as not being in Vanbrugh’s hand. We do know that the building was eventually finished with three urns on these plinths, as illustrated in the background of a 1746 drawing by James Stewart, where they project above the walls of the Great Court amongst other ornaments.  

Three urns on the roof of the Loggia shown on James Stewart’s 1746 drawing of the house.  


The smaller scale of the Loggia frontage would befit a smaller pott of the sort the recovered stone came from. Little is known about the appearance of the loggia between 1746 and an 1898 photograph taken for Country Life; By that time all trace of rooftop features had gone, and other photos from the same occasion show the stone balls already sited on the Echo Path, presumably with bases made out of the old urns. Although we can’t be certain, it seems that the fragment recovered last year is part of the early Eighteenth Century decoration of Vanbrugh’s Loggia, removed perhaps for safety, before being reused, then forgotten, until we salvaged it.

A Shirehampton Park Painting

A fantastic painting of the estate has just come to our attention. Kings Weston was once famous for its views, not just northwards across the Severn to Wales, but also to broad panoramas southwards up the Avon and across to Somerset. This newly discovered painting supposedly dates to around 1836, a time of great uncertainty for the house and estate. Edward Southwell, 21st Baron de Clifford (1767-1832), last in his line had died in 1832. His will instructed the sale of house and park, effects and furniture, and all the landed estate, with the proceeds being split between several nieces. His widow was required to give up living at the mansion, but had been well provided for with the splendid town  house in Carlton Terrace in the centre of London.

Above: Henry Willis’s painting showing the view across Shirehampton Park, towards the Avon, circa 1836. 

The following year the house and estate was marketed by estate agents; they described the park as “forming a most desirable situation for the erection of one or more villas.” Looking at the view depicted you can see the attraction to a potential developer who might be tempted to pepper the landscaped grounds with mansions for well-heeled merchants. By good fortune the estate was instead purchased by the incredibly wealth Philip Miles and preserved intact. By 1836, the suggested date for the painting, Miles was settling in having moved here from Leigh Court with his second wife and their children.  

The artist, Henry Willis, has chosen to emphasise the pastoral character of the view from Shirehampton Park, towards the Avon in the distance. A small group of agricultural workers have paused a while to chat as cattle amble through the landscaped ground behind them.  Beyond them a steam tug assists a sailing vessel up the Avon towards the city docks. The  contrasting of verdant trees with the dying elm and felled trunk in the foreground suggest themes of the passage of time and the circle of life.

The valuation and marketing prospectus for the estate from 1834

Willis was an artist associated with the Bristol School of Artists, and was a member of sketching parties with members of that group until his departure for the United States in 1842 until his health forced his return to England.  These artists, part of the Romantic Movement, often celebrated the natural beauty of the Bristol region. The Gorge was a particular favourite location, but paintings around Kings Weston are rarer from this group. It’s interesting to note that in 1829 Lord de Clifford had paid Willis the sum of £8 8s for a painting of Kings Weston, and out paid a further £2 10s on a frame.  There’s a remote possibility that it could have been this painting, but possibly there are others out there for us to discover.

Retracing our steps at Bristol Archives

It always pays to retrace your steps for something you might have missed before. A recent trip to Bristol Archives and a return to the incredible Kings Weston Book of Drawings led to some small, but interesting discoveries. For those who don’t know of it, it’s a compilation of some of the original architect’s and builder’s drawings for the house, park, and ornamental buildings dating from the first quarter of the Eighteenth Century. It is the source of a lot that underpins our understanding of the work of Sir John Vanbrugh.
 
First we looked again at a drawing well know to us showing the proposed plan of an octagonal summer house intended for the bottom of Longcoombe in Shirehampton Park, though an option to site it on the top of nearby Conger Hill is also given. This structure may have been that which the second Edward Southwell who owned the estate noted “the seat in Long Combe to be taken away” in 1754.

Plan of an octagonal seat in Longcombe with the feint pencil sketch identified. Kings Weston Book of Drawings. Bristol Archives. 


What we hadn’t spotted before was a tiny pencil sketch, almost invisible now on the margins. Enhancing this tiny doodle revealed it to be an elevation of the same building, suggesting an ornate ogee dome with a spherical finial surmounting it. It’s an oddly proportioned and inelegant proposal on the whole, perhaps a reason for its removal, but equally likely it had decayed sufficiently over thirty years or so to be rendered irreparable.

The sketch enhanced, with an interpretation of the building shown on the right. 

The book of drawings is full of drawings and sketches unrelated to Kings Weston, so we can be forgiven for having overlooked the significance of an untitled and unannotated elevation of a stone balustrade. Looking again at the drawing we compared it with a painting of the mid 1760s that we discovered some time after our first foray into the book of drawings. Bringing the two together only now did it become clear that the design was for the balustrade that once ran along the north side of the house, protecting people from straying too close to the unprotected edge of the gigantic Great Terrace beyond. It should be noted that this was a separate balustrade from that now protecting the coffee shop terrace; this was only constructed in the mid-Victorian, likely without knowledge of the original arrangement on this side of the house.

Scale drawing of the stone balustrade designed, we believe, for the Great Terrace. Kings Weston Book of Drawings. Bristol Archives  
A mid 18th Century painting of the Great Terrace on the north of the house and showing the balustrade and piers of similarly distinctive design

Related to the drawing is a memo, also pasted into the book of drawings. This sets out the price for the “rayless and ballisters” at 5 shillings(?) a yard and gives a cost of £15, including bases and pedestals. The note also sends the request that the freemason “desires to know whether hee shall go on with the small potts”; the potts are probably stone urns but their location is not revealed. If you can decipher the accompanying signature, you are a better person than we are!

Quote for stone balustrade and a query about “potts”

 
A final drawing is an intriguing, if tantalising, glimpse of the input of women in the design of elements of Kings Weston, and begs many questions yet to be answered. Helena Le Grand was the sister of Edward Southwell who began the rebuilding of Kings Weston house in 1712. When the house was complete enough for occupation, Edward relied on his sister to organise his affairs before moving in with his second wife, Anne Blathwayte. In August 1716 he wrote “my sister is fully employed in transposing and setting the furniture, pictures and cheney.” Obviously she was a trusted and capable set of hands in such circumstances, but a drawing of a fire surround suggests that she may have had a more direct input in the appearance of the interiors.
 
The drawing is dated February 1718, when the house was still being finished internally. It is entitled “Copy of Mrs Le Grand’s draft of a chimney piece to be wrought out of the ash colour marble at Kingsweston”. The implication here is that it was Helena who produced the original drawing. It’s not clear whether she was designer, or whether it was in turn a copy of another fire surround, but it’s interesting that it is a scaled drawing, with defined dimensions, and orthogonally drawn; this suggests the Helena clearly shared the skills of a draftsman, and implies that she was closely involved in the design and commissioning aspects of this feature at least. We are left to wonder how much architectural influence she might have had on her brother and his architect?  

Copy of Mrs Le Grand’s draft of a chimney piece. Kings Weston Book of Drawings. Bristol Archives.


A Pennant from Penpole 

This time of year might not be the best to think about camping, but we wanted to share a new artefact that’s recently come our way: a small green flag. Many will know that Penpole Wood and the slopes below, where Lawrence Weston estate now stands, were the home of Bristol’s district Scout camp between 1937 and 1947; It’s a rather sad story that ended with their land being compulsorily purchased by the City Council for new housing. But, in 1937, after their purchase of 70 acres of woods and a couple of fields in the park below they set out with great optimism to create somewhere that Scouts could come to hone their camping skills, pioneering, and woodcraft.
 

Teams of scouts raise the new camp flagpole in the fields below Penpole Wood. Trees in the distance on the right are still recognisable as those on The Tump. The location of the flag would be around where 19 Mancroft Avenue stands today.. 


By the end of the first year it was clear that it had been an immediate success. The Scouts chapel, steps through Penpole Woods, and the campfire circle had been set out, with Penpole Lodge and Wood Lodge being used as storage and offices. A campsite in the woods was created in Jubilee Clearing, surrounded by trees of the Victorian arboretum. The second year, 1938, began with great optimism. Early in the year a magnificent new flagpole of about 50ft in height was manhandled into the fields and set up close to the campfire circle.

a flyer handed out to advertise the “Penpoloree”

The highpoint of that year was the Whitsun jamboree camp held over the summer bank holiday weekend, christened the Penpoloree. This was the main annual gathering to which all the district’s scouts were invited, attracting visitors from troops around the country. Events and displays were put on over three consecutive days, the event even forming part of the city’s civic calendar with the distinguished attendance of the Lord Mayor. It was also an opportunity for the Scouts to showcase their campsite to the general public who were invited to the camp sing along, with guests paying 6d for the privilege.
 
 1938 was particularly special for the attendance of the 8th Earl of Buckinghamshire, John Hampden Mercer-Henderson (1906-1963), Commissioner for the Boy Scout movement. He camped with the scouts for the duration of the jamboree and keenly involved himself in the weekend’s events. His presence cemented Penpole on the national scouting stage, resulting in plenty of press coverage both locally and nationally.
 
The culmination of each day’s event was focussed on the huge campfire hosted in the fields below Penpole Wood. Here, with the camp chief presiding in a chair hollowed from a giant log, dignitaries were hosted and public beheld the massed voices of the campers in song. A special Penpole camp yell was also a highlight of festivities before campers returned to their tents either nearby or in Jubilee Clearing at the top end of the woods.      
 

The Commissioner of the Boy Scout movement, the Earl of Buckinghamshire, conducts proceedings around the jamboree campfire in 1938.


During the camp special pennants were awarded to recognise particular scouts and patrol groups who had excelled in their work, our recently acquired flag no doubt being one of those handed out by the Commissioner on that Whitsun weekend. By coincidence one of the photos published in the Evening Post shows the Earl presenting a similar pennant to the Lord Mayor at the camp. Sadly we know nothing of its history between then and our acquisition.
 

the pennant, awarded for good camping at the Penpole Whitsun jamboree in 1938. 
The Lord Mayor is presented with a similar pennant by the Earl of Buckingham.


The camp was a huge success. Over the weekend Penpole attracted 897 campers with another 479 visiting scouts, and over 2000 paying members of Bristol’s public. It was to be a sunny and halcyon time for those who attended, unaware that the onset of war the following year and the council’s desperate need for housing afterwards would overshadow their time there. Today the
 
If you remember camping at Penpole or have any more memorabilia from the scout’s time at Penpole, we’d love to hear from you. We know that there were films recorded during the 1938 event by W. F. E Gill, so we’d love to know what happened to them. If you’d like to read more about the Scout’s history on the Kings Weston estate, take a look at the detailed journals written at the time by W.G.N Webber who was camp coordinator for their time there. The original is held at Bristol Archives and is free to view on request.

Excavations on The Tump   

Long ago, when we were first exploring the historic sites around the estate a feature came to our attention on a map of 1772. It was drawn on an estate survey by Isaac Taylor, drawn in 1772 and now part of Bristol Archives collections.  A detail showed a rectangular shape, that we knew from later maps was a cattle pond, and a dark square feature shown excavated back into the slope of The Tump nearby. Again, looking at later maps this was marked as a well by the 20th century but its appearance on the Georgian plan raised the question whether it had begun as an ornamental feature in the landscaped grounds.

The location of the arch on The Tump 
 The arch exposed in the north slope of The Tump

Back in 2011, when we were first aware of it, we searched the whole area in vain. The cattle pond remains broadly traceable alongside the path from modern day Moor Grove, but any remails of the other feature completely eluded us. When we returned to the area as part of research for last month’s newsletter we noticed something in the bank that we’d missed before: a low stone arch. We knew from an entry on the city’s Historic Environment Record that an arch existed close by, it had been reported as roman in origin, though was quickly established to be more recent, described as an “18-19th century spring head”. This corresponded with the feature we now saw on The Tump, and with the date of the Taylor plan. With the location now identified we set out to uncover what the arch was from. We undertook some superficial clearance of some of the undergrowth around the arch and excavated either side to establish how wide it was. The arch is irregular in shape, and roughly built. As found its crown was clear of the ground surface by about 20cm, but using a torch it clearly extended backward under the bank. When surveyed it transpired that it went back 1.7m under ground, ending in a flat rear wall.

The location of the livestock pond and square feature on the 1772 estate survey. 


 Cutting back either side revealed the arch was shallow, springing from two side walls 1.34m apart. The front sections of these walls, and the arch itself, were rough, indicating that they had been  broken away with portions demolished. The mortar holding the arch together contained lumps of ash and was white in colour, indicative of an early-mid 19th century date. The mortar of the walls appeared yellow and of different, earlier date. With the general dimensions of the remains established we sought to find out how far the structure once extended out from the hill, and where it terminated below ground. Digging down on one side the infill was loose rubble, so loose large lumps could be easily lifted out by hand. At a depth of 47cm below the springing of the arch there was a clear pool of water!

Something new for KWAG, we’ve utilised new freely available new photogrammetry technology to create a 3D model of the arch and cistern as excavated. To explore it for yourself follow this link: 
Spring head at The Tump, Kings Weston, Bristol – Download Free 3D Model on Polycam

The arch during excavation. the hole dug down on the right reached the water table around 40cm below the arch spring

Unfortunately, further excavations weren’t possible, but the exercise established a lot about the feature, its function and fate. It was clear that it wasn’t a garden feature, but a practical one. As suggested by the Historic Environment Record, it looks to be a natural spring that had a cistern built around it to collect water; this waster was used to feed the livestock pond just a short way downhill to the west. The 1772 estate plan may show an open cistern dug into the side of the hill. It appears that this had a vaulted roof constructed over it at a slightly later date, and from its location it would otherwise have risked filling up with silt washing off the hill. The irregular shape of the exposed edge of the arch represents a square aperture, an inspection hole or hatch, that would account for it being described as a well on later maps, despite having a very shallow water level and not being dug down in the traditional manner.

Scale diagram indicating the form and size of the cistern or springhead.
Image from a 3D photogrammetry model of the arch. Click on it to view the model in 3D


The animal pond survived the construction of Lawrence Weston estate around it, and is shown on aerial photos from 1950, glinting behind the houses of Moor Grove. No doubt this posed a health and safety risk to the new residents of the area, and it is reputed to have flooded downhill in wet weather, into the gardens of new houses. It would have been a practical necessity to infill the pond, and it’s likely that the spring or well head was dealt with at the same time, with the arch partially destroyed to enable its infilling with rubble. Whilst it wasn’t the imagined grotto or ornamental feature that it might have been the cistern is interesting, nevertheless. Its importance to the agricultural estates justifies its marking on the 1772 plan, and the relationship with the livestock pond shows how the opportunities were harnessed.