While taking visitors around the house on Doors Open Day it occurred to us what a complex history of alterations has occurred over time. There are few parts of the house that haven’t been altered over time, but the impressive stair hall has perhaps the most complicated background.

The space as we see it today is nothing like Sir John Vanbrugh, the original architect, intended. Whilst there are some remainders from his time, particularly the painted trompe l’oeil urns in their alcoves, and the staircase itself, it is virtually unrecognisable. It was long thought that the interior of the house wasn’t finished by Vanbrugh, but we now know different, and KWAG has established its original appearance through diligent research and close inspection of historic drawings.

The staircase remains in its original location, but, when the house became a home for the first time, in 1716, it was enclosed in a birdcage of stone arcades on all four sides. You would enter through a single arched door in the middle of the south-west wall. In front of you, beyond an arcaded passage the stair would have dominated the space, with a backdrop of tiered glazed arched windows reaching up to the ceiling. The rhythm of arches was repeated on the other three sides of the stair, tightly enclosing and supporting it on all sides. This formed a series of passages on all floors from which the various rooms could be accessed.

Rather than today’s arrangement, with its grid of skylights, there was a deeply coved ceiling with a solid, flat central panel; this may have been decorated with a painted allegorical scene in keeping with many important interiors of the time.

There are parallels between what one existed at Kings Weston and Vanbrugh’s more grandiose Hall of Blenheim Palace. Here too the architect incorporated arcaded passages that looked down into the main space, albeit on a more expansive scale. There is also the deeply coved ceiling that we know Kings Weston possessed until later alterations. A painted ceiling centrepiece like that at Blenheim would have matched the interior design approach to the painted urns that still exit.

Our computer reconstruction of the stair hall must be a relatively accurate representation of the original appearance; but what happened to it?

The house passed from the Southwell family to the Miles family in the 1830s. It was the second generation of the Miles’, with Philip William Skinner Miles, that things changed. The year following his inheritance of the Kings Weston estate Skinner Miles commissioned the architect Thomas Hopper to make huge changes. The ambition was to turn the aging mansion into a modern family home. New kitchens, enlarged reception rooms, and better sanitary accommodation were required.

Perhaps Miles found the stair hall too dark and restrictive, or maybe the space used for architectural drama was in greater need for practical purposes. Whatever the reason work began in 1846 to open out the space by removing the integral arcades around the stair. Original plans had been to replace the 1700s staircase completely, but in the event it was kept. The loss of its supporting walls meant that a new approach had to be found to hold it up. Using modern building technology the architect engineered new open galleries where the arcades had once been. These galleries were supported on composite cast iron and timber beams that spanned between the ‘tower’ structures within the space that could not be removed.

The new beams, cast in Gloucester and sailed to Bristol in 1847, were erected in the space. These would now carry the load of the newly free-floating stair. Iron rods were connected through the beams and dropped down to connect with the stair landing. A secondary steel beam was threaded through the landing and bolted to the suspension rods with giant ornamental nuts formed like upturned pineapples.  

At the same time the whole of the back wall of the stair hall was being carefully but completely removed, along with its arched windows. A letter written by Henry Rumney, the local architect entrusted to oversee the work on behalf of Hopper and his client, says it was progressively dismantled “having properly marked the stones for refixing & the windows & other work connected also”. A temporary timber truss supported the ceiling during these works.  The care taken in dismantling the rear wall was with the intention to rebuild it on a new alignment, about 12 feet out from its original location, and the spot where we find it today. Peculiarly this appears to have been thought necessary only to allow for new toilets to be incorporated in the newly acquired space.

With toilets now blocking the old back windows another approach was required to light the stair. Hopper’s solution here was to add a series of roof lights to the existing flat ceiling to light it from above.

All these works must have been undertaken at huge expense, but the benefits look to have been meagre, especially to modern eyes that lament the terrible loss of Vanbrugh’s interior.  For the Miles family new toilets would no doubt have been an incredible relief (no pun intended!). On completion in the new room was recorded in a watercolour painting by Thomas Rowbotham. The newly acquired floorspace was quickly occupied for a fashionable billiard table shortly after; an iron bracket still fastened two thirds of the way up the stair was designed to hold suspended lights that would have illuminated the game.

It no longer has the integrity of the original design, and Hopper’s changes are a bit clumsy and functional rather than beautiful. Hopper must have recognised the compromised nature of the results: As if in tribute he’d virtually reproduced Vanbrugh’s dramatic original arrangement in his own work at Amesbury Abbey.  Today the stair hall remains a grand focal space of Kings Weston House, one containing interesting and important features from several periods. Perhaps though, it is the story of how it took on its present state that is most interesting.  

A recent auction at Bonhams in London unearthed two solid silver plates from a collection in the United States. They have a direct connection with Kings Weston and tell us something of the wealth and taste of the owners of the house in the Victorian era.

During most of the Nineteenth Century Kings Weston was owned by the wealthiest family in Bristol: the Miles dynasty of merchants, bankers, and industrialists. It was bought in 1834 by Philip John Miles as a family home with his second wife, Clarissa Peach. After he died in 1845 Clarissa was well provided for in his will, and she continued to live at Kings Weston as dowager matriarch with several of her eleven grown children, until her own death in 1868.

It was during this last period of her life, after Philip’s death, that the two silver plates were commissioned. Probably once part of a much larger service these survivors were made by an important London silversmith, William Ker Reid, in 1855. Even at the time they would have been an extremely expensive luxury, testament to the incredible wealth of the family and their desire to express it.

The service was certainly commissioned for the tables of Kings Weston. We know that it was Clarissa who commissioned these plates because of the engraved arms on either side of the rim. On one side is the Miles family crest, an arm holding an anchor representing their maritime interests; opposite it Clarissa had her own family’s arms, that of the Peach family of Tockington, Gloucestershire, depicted. The shells incorporated in the border may also be allusions to the family’s connections with the sea. What is perhaps unusual is that Clarissa must have commissioned them herself for the house, rather than her son Philip William Skinner Miles as the heir to the Kings Weston estate; she clearly had a significant inheritance of her own.

Clarissa is a less well-known figure in the history of the estate. We have no image of her, and there are few documented mentions. These plates show she was a powerful woman in her own right and was able to commission high status objects. After she died in 1868 she was buried with her husband at Henbury church. It was here that her family chose to commemorate her life in a stained glass window. Depicted in it are personifications of Faith, Hope, and Charity. It’s probably not a coincidence that an anchor, here symbolising hope, is a prominent motif in the design.   

The Save the Green Iron Bridge campaign and the Kings Weston Action Group have submitted their own planning application to restore the Grade II Listed Iron Bridge over Kings Weston Road, and protect it from future damage from lorries and busses. Te application seeks consent to erect steel height restrictors either side of the bridge to make sure high sided vehicles are prevented from reaching the restored bridge and hitting it. It’s intended to be part of a series of traffic measures to stop vehicle strikes in future.

If you want to look at the whole application and support our efforts to find a workable solution to get the bridge restored and reopened please add your comments online via Bristol City Council Planning website and search for application number 21/02295/F.

If our application is successful we hope to establish funding for the proposals and work with Bristol City Council to have them carried out. If you have any queries please contact us via kwactiongroup@gmail.com or 07811666671

During lockdown the cessation of golf on Shirehamton Park gave many the opportunity to take advantage of this less well trodden part of the Kings Weston Estate. Without sports being played families were free to roam across the National Trust owned parkland and take in its beauty. Shirehampton Park is often the forgotten side of the estate, but covers around a third of its area, comprising of around 90 acres. It was donated to the Trust by the last private owner of Kings Weston house, Philip Napier Miles, in 1922 with the proviso that it would be made always accessible to the residents of Shirehampton and Sea Mills for their recreation, and with the golf course’s use of it required. The original intention was expressed in the local papers in 1918, but it’s believed that the ongoing construction of the Portway through the park at the time delayed the final transfer.

But the parkland here has a much longer history. Still today you can trace long ridges across the golf course that represent ancient field systems. Larger ones to the east of the area face south and are likely to have been designed as medieval rabbit warrens, a conyger, that were used to farm the animals for food; coney is an obsolete historical name for rabbits. The long-disused name of a nearby outcrop, Conger Hill, is likely to derive from the adjacent coneyger.  

In the Seventeeth Century Sir Robert Southwell set out to establish groves of fir trees here both for pleasure and for timber, and keenly improved the land through careful management. It remained a largely agricultural landscape until the 1720s. By the time of the estate survey at the start of that decade Edward Southwell, Sir Robert’s son, was keen to capitalise on the park’s picturesque rolling landscape, riverfront, and spectacular views across to Somerset. Soon after the completion of Kings Weston house he threw the boundary of Kings Weston’s estate out as far as the Avon and began incorporating it into the landscaped grounds.

At the heart of Shirehamton Park is Longcombe, a deep hidden valley almost completely enclosed from the outside world, and with considerable picturesque value. There are two early signs of Southwell’s ambitions for this long combe which are included in the Kings Weston Book of Drawings, an album of historical plan and drawings held by Bristol Archives. There are many sketches and drawings for garden buildings amongst its pages, and two of these relate to structures around Longcombe. Both appear to have been designed to capitalise on the topography, focused on aligned views and distant prospects.

The first is, conveniently, dated to 1724, when other parkland developments were already underway elsewhere on the estate. It is a design for a viewing mound with eight individual prospects cut through the trees to focus the eye on distant landmarks. The mound was to be framed with a grove of elms and topped with a cabinet of yew trees accessed by means of a ramped walk from the east. From the mound views were aligned down Longcombe, and towards neighbouring estates at Charlton (Somerset), Leigh Court, Sneyd Park, Cote – an important house on the Downs, as well as views to the river and Westbury on Trym. Exploring the location today there remains an obvious circular prominence amongst the trees, but any framed views have long since been lost.

A second, undated, plan shows an octagonal lodge backing onto woodland with views identified in the direction of “the Dock” at Sea Mills. The location for this proposal is less certain. Under the description of “Plan for Longcombe Lodge” there is an addition scrawled in a lighter hand suggesting that an alternative site could be on Conger Hill, one supposes the same spot as the design for the viewing mound. The original intention for this building could have been to command the view along the length of Longcombe from a spot at the head of the valley somewhere. The truth is that we don’t know if either of these designs was executed, but there is some indication that something was made on Conger Hill from a later estate plan of 1772. Its author, Isaac Taylor, illustrated a circular open feature within the woods here, with a linear path approaching it from the high ground to the east, and a viewing corridor cut through the trees looking up Longcombe. Was this the vestige of the many-spoked design of 1724 or something else? There is no sign of the octagonal lodge. A tantalising 1759 memo authored by Edward Southwell II in the interim period notes “The ash trees and the seat in Long Combe to be taken away”; was this connected with one of these features?  

 By the later Georgian era Shirehampton Park was much admired for its views of the Avon. Although the park offered extensive landscape pasture its main value was as a wider picturesque setting for the mansion house. This continued into the Nineteenth Century long after the estate passed to the Miles Family. A notable event was hosted in Loncombe in 1868 at the behest of Philip Skinner Miles. He was particularly keen on encouraging his tenants to grow their own produce and improve their properties with flowers. His family were instigators of the local horticultural society in the 1850s and flower shows became a regular feature on the estate. These were sometimes held close to the house, but more often in Shirehampton Park. In 1868 the Shirehampton Flower Show was held in the pastoral setting of Longcombe. To serve visitors to the show a temporary railway platform was erected where the recently opened railway crossed the foot of the combe and special trains ran throughout the day from Bristol.

In the final part of our tenth anniversary review we look at how KWAG celebrates the historic estate. When we established in 2011 it was to try and share the amazing history of the estate with as many people as possible. KWAG’s founders, Tim Denning and David Martyn had long puzzled over why the grand house appeared to sit in the corner of an open field surrounded by woods and set out to piece together more about the history of the house, landscaped gardens, and the families who lived there. Some of the discoveries that were made in the early days added some astonishing new background to Kings Weston, overturning decades of wrong assumptions and misunderstanding. KWAG was formed in an effort to share the importance of the estate with others and spread the word about the incredible history now discovered.

Below; where it all began; KWAG’s first exhibition  held in the Echo to coincide with Doors Open day in September 2012. This was our first public event. 

It remains a key ambition of KWAG to promote the history of the estate. Working with Bristol City Council we ensured that all of our research and knowledge was made available in the creation of a Conservation Management Plan for the estate. This continues to form the road map for the future of the estate and for all KWAG’s work. This was adopted by the Council in 2014 and is a fascinating read for anyone interested in Kings Weston. We also worked closely with the Council to help identify important sites and monuments within the estate and help mould council policies that would cover their protection and conservation.

Probably the most important discoveries KWAG has made relate to the history of the house itself. Although its architect, Sir John Vanbrugh is one of the most nationally important architects his work at Kings Weston was surprisingly poorly understood. Most researchers had guessed at when it was built, and you will regularly read 1710 as the assumed date. KWAG undertook extensive research, mainly using original documents in Bristol Archives and the British Library to finally establish an exact date, the 17^th June 1712, for the commencement of the present building. In the process we uncovered the intriguing story of the demolition of the old building with no firm plan for its replacement, the anxiety that the owner, Edward Southwell, felt over what to replace it with barely a month before the new house began, and the long discourse between him, his architect, and other acquaintances during the construction. We’ve also established that Southwell finally moved into his new house in 1716.

Some of these correspondence have since been lodged as part of the collections of Bristol Archives following KWAG’s actions. We were grateful for the public response to a call for donations in 2018 to secure an important letter about the house from Sir John Vanbrugh. In 2013 we also secured the transfer of a large and important archive of family papers that were still held by the descendants of the Southwell family and amongst which are fascinating details about the house and estate in the Eighteenth Century.

As well as contributing some documents directly to pubic collections we also hold a growing collection of original material and artefacts ourselves. Historical paintings, photos, documents and ephemera that relate to Kings Weston and the families who lived there have all been collected when the opportunity has arisen, and we’re grateful for members of the public who have added to our collection through donations. Our research has been used in other ways. In 2013 we used it to apply to Historic England to get the historic Georgian viewing terrace Grade II Listed. In 2015 we managed to get Shirehampton War Memorial, an important feature in the park, Listed too.

Of course KWAG’s ambition has always been to share the history of Kings Weston and we’ve found many ways to accomplish this. We’ve published a wide range of guides, articles, and, of course, the monthly newsletters for our members. The majority of these focus on the estate’s history. Walks, tours, exhibitions, and public talks are all ways that we try and promote Kings Weston across the city and beyond. We’ve also run major events and a programme of schools engagement. It’s always been at the heart of KWAG to make history as accessible as possible. By reconstructing some of the lost buildings and house interiors using 3D computer modelling has been one way we’ve tried to illustrate how the estate has evolved. Of course our website has become an essential one-stop shop for anything to do with history, nature, and our activities, and is an ever growing archive of fascinating information and images.

Not all discoveries have been found in archives however; KWAG has run several archaeological explorations to uncover more about the parkland. Several Geophys events have identified lost features including the original Great Court at the front of the house as well as some other intriguing features that we may explore further someday.in 2012 we uncovered ruins of Sir John Vanbrugh’s Penpole Lodge and recorded them in measured drawings.

Marble fragments discovered in the cellars of the house were identified by us when they came to light in 2012. Piecing the fragments together on the floor of the cellar we recognised them from photos from a 1927 article in Country Life as being from the Eating Parlour, now the Canaletto Room upstairs. We also managed to find it referenced in archival material and could date it to 1764. It was cleaned and restored by Norman Routledge before being reinstated as the centrepiece to the room once more.

Rather than detail it in full here a story about another recent find, a painting in the collections of the architect Sir John Soane RA has been published on our website. The painting brings to light the influence of Kings Weston on later generations of architects and the admiration, and occasional vitriol the house provoked! 

There are still people who come to us today saying they’ve lived in Bristol all their lives but never visited, but these days there are fewer who say they’ve never heard of Kings Weston. It can’t have escaped notice by anyone walking the park over the last ten years how many more people are enjoying it. We hope that KWAG’s influence and efforts have helped raise the profile of one of Bristol’s most important historic sites and will continue to do so into the future.

Below: Kings Weston house, or is it? Find out more here

In January we began reflecting on KWAG’s achievements of our first decade. This month we look back again to see what’s been achieved in enhancing the estate. Rather than last month’s focus on conservation works these projects have added to and improved the historic estate from where we found it in 2011. Much of this has been achieved thanks to the generosity of our volunteers’ time but sometimes has relied on equally generous financial donations. Again, we don’t seek to make an exhaustive list of everything the group’s achieved, but remember some of the highlights here. 

A simple insight into the impact we’ve made is demonstrated by the difference in bench numbers. In 2011 there were just two benches within the park, one on Kingsweston Hill and the other close to the Iron Bridge. At one of our early consultation events the need for benches was eagerly expressed by park users, particularly the elderly. To respond to this need we agreed a schedule of new bench locations with Bristol City Council and multiplied two benches into fifteen. We’re grateful to anyone who has sponsored one of these benches, and also to the team of volunteer who have often struggled with rocky ground to install these. Less glamorous, but just as valuable, has been the provision of three new litter bins where only one existed before. The decline in dog waste has been marked and in no small part thanks to the bins we’ve supplied.

KWAG doesn’t work alone, and where we can we look to work with partners with similar objectives. One of the park’s new benches departed from the standard oak seat and was an artistic celebration of Kings Weston and its place within “A Forgotten Landscape”. This 2018 project was a Heritage Lottery Funded focus on the land along the Severn Estuary and we worked with them to secure an appropriately celebratory design incorporating historic and natural features associated with Kings Weston. It included the arm and anchor of the arms of the Miles family who owned the house and much of the land below it.

We work in other ways to improve the experience of park visitors old and new, and help share the historic importance of the parkland. In 2012 we began with our first leaflet dispenser at Shirehampton Road car park. This was followed two years later by the map board highlighting the historic landmarks of the estate. This was installed with the assistance of the Avon Gardens Trust. We’re glad to announce here that they have kindly granted money for another in the park which will arrive soon.

Volunteer working parties aren’t just focused on conservation work and some of our biggest enhancements to the estate have been thanks to their efforts. An early success in 2013 was the removal of the derelict tennis court alongside Shirehampton Road, opposite the war memorial. This seems a distant memory now, but at the time it was an unsightly blight of decaying steel fence and undergrowth right at the front of the park. It took a couple of sessions, but its removal opened the park up and allowed the Council to start reincorporating the land back into the grassland.

Amongst our biggest and most physically challenging achievements must by the flight of 61 steps installed through Penpole Wood. This sought to restore an historic connection between the carriage drive and one of the historic Georgian pleasure walks below. The latter had been formed in the 1760s, but the connection had become impassable. The formation of steps restored an important circular walk. The first three months of 2015 saw most of the work finished, but the need to pile some of the steps into the bedrock required a return the following year to finally complete the job using a different approach. Already popular even before we’d finished building them we hope they will continue to be of benefit for many years yet.

The skills we’d picked up on the Penpole steps were reemployed in 2017 when we installed another short, but important stretch linking the Echo to the viewing terrace behind it. Although an historic path had existed it had long since vanished, and the going was steep, muddy and impassable for anyone with a wheelchair or unsteady on their feet. A new serpentine set of steps created an accessible route for everyone to enjoy, followed the Georgian path closely, and reconnected two important historic features. We’re grateful for all the volunteers who have helped in these projects, and particularly to Jim Ellis who has organised and provided logistics for many of our grand projects.

As well as installing new infrastructure we’ve enhanced the park in softer ways. In partnership with One Tree per Child we’ve planted hundreds of new saplings within Penpole Wood to help regenerate native woodland. Particular thanks are due to Celia Ellis who has helped coordinate these works and has taken such an active role for both our organisations.

Every year since 2013 we’ve carried out our annual Big Bulb Plant, strengthening native wildflower populations and enhancing the park for visitors. In the last eight years we’ve planted over 64,000 bulbs, from daffodils to bluebells, cyclamen, and fritillary. Woodland areas have benefited from bluebells where the choking cherry laurel have been removed, and new displays of daffodils have become a highlight of the Kings Weston year. It’s at The Circle that our efforts to conserve and enhance have converged with greatest effect. In 2011 it was in a poor state, engulfed in brambles with laurels hard behind them. Conservation work pushed back the undergrowth, we followed through with grass seed and diligent maintenance until 2019 when it was planted with 8000 daffodils. The results have been inspiring and we hope for a similar display this year.

However, probably our greatest planting achievement was the reinstatement of the avenue of lime trees framing the main front of Kings Weston house. This was replanted as a memorial to KWAG’s co-founder, Tim Denning who died in 2012 and was completed as a schools project in January 2014. The avenue of seventeen new trees restores some of the formal relationship between house and grounds, balancing out the existing ancient lime avenue, and restoring a long lost landscape feature.

As part of our tenth anniversary events we will be planting more trees around the estate. In January three new Scots Pine saplings were planted to replace some of the mighty “Sentinels” in the woodland below the Echo. The original trees were planted perhaps two centuries ago, but some are now succumbing to decay. We hope that these three new sentinels will grow to continue the species’ vigil over the estate for many years to come.  

The New Year brings with it the tenth anniversary of the Kings Weston Action Group. This is a good moment to look back and reflect on our achievements, especially when there is so little else to be able to report during this bleak month. In 2011 David Martyn and Tim Denning realised a mutual passion for Kings Weston, began researching its history, and realised the perilous state of the important landscaped parkland. Fortunately that passion was soon shaded by hundreds of people across the country who became our supporters and from the local community who wanted to help conserve the estate.   

It’s not until we sat down to review exactly what we had been doing over the last decade that the startling scale of volunteer efforts became clear. Some of the figures speak for themselves. Where in 2011 there were just two benches on the whole 300 acre estate, there are now 17; a single litter bin is now four and have had a big impact on litter and dog waste; working parties have covered literally acres of land. Volunteers have valiantly removed 7.7 acres of invasive cherry laurel, and a colossal 11.3 acres of woodland has been managed through natural spacing. 2.3 acres of scrub and bramble encroachment have been pushed back including around the ancient lime avenue, the slopes around Shirehampton Park, and the Circle where a fields of daffodils is now the crowning achievement of the clearances. This map charts many of our volunteer’s achievements.

Since 2014 all of our work has been governed by a Conservation Management plan published by the City Council with input from the interested parties around the estate. This is our road map for the future preservation of the historic landscape. Over the next few months we’ll take a look at some of our achievements under the umbrella of KWAG’s mission to “conserve, enhance, and celebrate the historic estate.  

Part I: To conserve…

Conservation is core to KWAG’s role, of both the historic and natural environment. Conservation as we think about it here is about managing what we already have , and ensure the future preservation of the estate for everyone to enjoy. This work seeks to reveal the historic value of the estate whilst ensuring the health of its woods, grasslands and other habitats. It was recognised at a very early stage that the condition of the  estate had declined badly since WWII with features lost, and the landscape neglected and overgrown. We established the action group to literally take action to help reverse that decline. When we were setting out a few of us began informally clearing areas around the ancient lime avenue, pushing back brambles and felling self-seeded saplings that had been encroaching on the it. For several Saturdays in 2011 this work attracted a good deal of interest and helped us raise the profile of the embryonic group.

Many of our projects have revolved around woodland management, and in fact it was with natural spacing along the Echo path that we began with our first official volunteer event in January 2012. We’re delighted that some of our volunteers for that first Working Party are still regularly attending today! This work removed hundreds of saplings that threatened to inundate the wood and challenge the more established trees. The event set the model for all subsequent working parties. These have continued every month with little interruption since then until the advent of Coronavirus. Even so we’ve clocked up  around 100 working parties with an estimated four-and-a-half thousand man-hours of work undertaken!

We don’t have space here to detail all of our working party projects over the years, but it’s worth noting some of our major projects. We like to set clear goals for working parties and projects can be planned to last several months at a time. Naturally we love to record everything we do with our popular before-and-after photos. There have become a unique record of the decade’s achievements.

Later in 2012 we set ourselves the task of clearing the Georgian viewing terrace behind the Echo. Before we started work the views from it were blocked be an impenetrable hedge of undergrowth and the terrace wall itself invisible from outside. Over several months we gradually cleared both sides to reveal the spectacular views once again which, we’re glad to say, are still a highlight of the park. We were glad to have been supported by Bristol Parks who came along behind us to clear the larger trees that were threatening the stability of the wall. It was the success of the clearance that led us to seek national Listed building designation for the terrace as an important feature of the landscape design. Work continued nearby to open up the copses below the terrace to reveal the expanses of daffodils that are such a feature of the slopes here.

Conservation work hasn’t been restricted to tree felling and underbrush. In 2013 we attacked the derelict tennis court alongside Shirehampton Road. This had been abandoned for decades before and had become unsightly and dangerous. Again over several months we pulled down the steel fence and trimmed out the undergrowth that had pushed its way through the tarmac. The impact was striking and our efforts were followed up by the Council who have begun re-naturalising the area back into the important grassland around it. The “shop window” for the estate has been much improved by this removal, especially on approaching the estate from Shirehampton.

After much lobbying of the council 2013 was also the year that the brambles engulfing the meadow below Kings Weston house were finally removed.

Our first experience with cherry laurels saw us return to the Echo Walk in 2014. From memory this may have been some of our most challenging work to date, with huge and tangled masses of choking undergrowth that had starved the native woodland of light and nutrients. The ambition here was to both rid the woodland of the invasive plant and to open up the route of the Georgian pleasure walk as a more accessible path between Echo and house. By now we had a good idea of how amazing our working party volunteers were, and quite how much our team could achieve in relatively short time and the whole area was tackled in just four months events. The Council Parks team never fail to be amazed at how much KWAG volunteers can do, and were happy to follow behind us poisoning the stumps we’d left.  

Our next major project christened Lifting the Curtain was the biggest we’d taken on at that point. Our goal was to clear undergrowth along the entire length of the South Walk and to open up views towards Kings Weston house from this important section of the main walking circuit. The walk had in places become a green tunnel through the undergrowth. Seeing the opportunity of visually reconnecting the path and house we felled self-seeded saplings, brambles, and undergrowth, seeking to restore lost prospects. In the process we discovered another planted line of mature trees that had been planted as part of the landscape design and a set of WWII concrete steps which, once restored, form an important and well used part of the walking routes through the park. Work close to the steps also uncovered some historic finds from the same period which are now part of KWAG’s collections.  Most of 2015 was taken up with the South Walk project, but we returned again a couple of years later to open up sections of the southern side of the walk, looking over Shirehampton Park. This work too restored some fine views to the park.

Conservation work has sought to reveal and celebrate some of the better and less well known monuments of the estate. We’ve been particularly keen to save the glasshouse wall in the walled gardens. At 54ft long it was once one of the largest in the country when it was erected in 1763, but is now reduced to a short section of wall behind the old stables. To coincide with the pubic opening of the gardens around Kingsweston School in 2016 we undertook to open up the historic glasshouse structure that had once housed some of the finest exotic specimens in Europe. Undergrowth was removed from the wall, and saplings that threatened its stability and survival pushed back. Whilst our work over two months has improved the condition of the structure this remains a feature in dire need of conservation. A couple of months later we also opened up views to the Grade I Listed Loggia from the parkland below.

Cherry laurel occupied us for months afterwards, and much of our time into 2020. We were working with the Council on Forestry Commission sponsored work to improve the health of the native woodland by removing the invader and opening the forest floor for natives to thrive. The dark overcrowded and impenetrable laurel thickets have been a startling contrast to the open woodland that we’ve managed to reveal. This laborious task took us from The Circle, right through the woodland almost as far as Penpole Point. In the process we revealed the woodland avenues, majestic specimen trees, parts of the Victorian pinetum around Jubilee Clearing, and a long path lined with oaks and yews, probably part of the Nineteenth Century landscaping of the woodland. To learn that almost eight acres of laurel has now been felled is simultaneously surprising for its extent, but unsurprising for the effort it took to fell, but there remains much more to deal with.  The removal of laurel has been controversial for the sudden change in appearance, but has been essential to protect the biodiversity of the ancient woodland and we’ve sought to offset the impact by planting hundreds of natives in their place, but more of that when we celebrate the enhancement of the estate in next month’s newsletter.    

As ever thanks has to go to everyone who has come out to help  our working parties, past and present, and we hope to see everyone again in the not too distant future.   

If you’re eager to hear more about our first ten years you might be interested in watching this recent talk given to Stoke Bishop Local History Group: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR3u1oDpVf4&feature=youtu.be

The Miles family, who lived at Kings Weston for most of the 19^th Century, were famously private, and the public were kept well away from the house, behind the parkland boundary.  Photos of Kings Weston are, therefore, surprisingly rare for such an important historic building, especially from before the 20^th Century. We’ve recently uncovered what’s considered to be the earliest photograph of the house, which we reproduce here. The scene seems little changed from today, looking across the lawns towards the building, with the evergreen border sheltering the garden front from the excesses of the wind, and as such it’s difficult to date. All we have to go on is the small size of the card, a “carte de visite”, and the name of the photographer, Maurice Batiste.

Batiste was a Frenchman who arrived in Bath in about 1871 where he set up business in Bladud’s Buildings. His career is little documented but for several court records where his temperamental mood appears to have got him into trouble on several occasions. By 1881 he’d moved on again, so we can be fairly certain his Kings Weston photo dates to the 1870s and, but the quality of the card, probably the earlier part of that decade.

The British Library has recently published a vast catalogue of topographical drawings and plans from the collections of George III. It’s probably unsurprising that amongst the collection there’s something of the famous Kings Weston estate represented. Of particular interest is a high quality copy of a notable estate plan of 1720. Bristol Archives also holds copies of this plan, but this is the first time one has been more publically available.

Although not identified by the British Library the tiny signature of W. Hallett appears in reverse in the cartouche, so we can attribute it to this otherwise unknown engraver. The 1720 plan is the first known measured survey of the estate, and shows in detail the house and parkland, immediately before Sir John Vanbrugh began erecting new garden buildings at The Echo, and rebuilt Penpole Lodge. The detail of the gardens, courtyards, radiating avenues, and formal layout of walks through Penpole Wood have been fundamental in understanding the landscaped grounds of the park during the early Georgian era, and the context of Vanbrugh’s Baroque house, before it was de-formalised later the same century.

It seems an age ago now, back in October, when we ran our Big Bulb Plant. Despite the constraints of working within the restrictions of the Global Pandemic we managed to orchestrate an event that gave opportunities for local families and regular volunteers to help plant 6000 daffodil bulbs along the ancient Lime Avenue. We had to be careful in not ordering too many bulbs, and limiting our expectations, but the turnout was good and we were forced to let some of our regular volunteers go by lunchtime, in order that there were enough bulbs left for the remaining booked families. Sorry to anyone who had to head home earlier than planned, but your hard work in the morning was gratefully received!

The area was set up with social distancing measures in place, and fenced areas for small parties to work within, and this worked effectively during the day. With the help of lots of kids and parents we have successfully filled the whole of the area. We also have to thank everyone who kindly, and generously donated to KWAG to support the project, and also to the Co-Op who have matched volunteer donations with a grant.  

Naturally we won’t know how successful we’ve been until next Spring, but we anticipate that the new area will complement that planted in 2019 around the Circle. Keep your eyes peeled for bulbs showing their heads, maybe as early as January!