In error, we ordered far more daffodil bulbs than we anticipated ahead of our annual Big Bulb Plant in October. Instead of 7000, volunteers who came along had the challenge of getting 9000 bulbs into the ground. Matters were exasperated too, by the quality of the ground around the historic Kings Weston iron bridge where we’d committed to plant. Earlier this year, with the support of the Save the Green Iron Bridge group and Janet Poole., donations were collected as part of the celebrations around the reopening of the bridge, and it seemed fit to decorate either side of the structure with these flowers. When it came to it, this was easier said than done.
Work begins on the east side of the bridge with plenty of family involvement.
The event began at 10am and gradually volunteer numbers grew throughout the morning. Those tasked with digging holes for the bulbs immediately found the ground to be poor, filled, as it was, with rubble sat there from decades before. Both sides of the bridge were heavy going, large lumps of building stone, brick, tarmac and all manner of material dumped there for inexplicable reasons and buried beneath the turf. This considerably slowed progress throughout the day, particularly on the west side. We still don’t know where all this material came from, but it could have been demolition rubble from the WWII use of the estate or some well-meaning council plan to level the ground around the bridge.
By lunchtime, opportunities to plant on the eastern side were exhausted, and everyone moved over to support the beleaguered team on the west. Aside from the challenge of the ground conditions, the day was perfect for the task, breaking out in sunshine by the end of the day, helpfully illuminating the slopes of Shirehampton Park as it sank towards the horizon. Fine tilth of soil left by digging bramble roots out sped progress as the afternoon progressed, and work was completed with the trimming of some self-seeded saplings that might overshadow the newly planted area.
A big gang of volunteers moves gradually along the grass from the bridge. The western side of the iron bridge proved the biggest challenge to dig.
We’re immensely grateful for everyone who came along throughout the day, no matter how long they were able to help for. We hope that the daffodils will now find their own path and root well in the troublesome ground before next spring and give us a fine display. Whilst we didn’t manage to get the full compliment in the ground, 6500 bulbs made it in. The surplus will form the basis of this month’s working party and go in along Shirehampton Road.
Kings Weston has a habit of bringing people together, and when, by chance, we began talking to Peter Floyd, former head of the city design team at Bristol City Council, we realised he had close connections with the house. Peter has kindly written a reminiscence from 1970, a pivotal year for the mansion on becoming redundant for a second time since WWII, and, as it happened, his own life. Peter writes:
“I worked for Bristol City Council (BCC)Planning Department in 1970. As an architect/planner I was head of Design Section responsible for some architectural aspects of the Planning, Engineering and Parks Departments. I was also a member of the Council of Bristol and Somerset Society of Architects (BSSA).
In the late 60’s public concern was growing about the risk of dereliction of both Ashton Court Mansion and also Kings Weston House. I had already organised a number of events for the BSSA and in 1970 chaired a group of members who decided to hold a Ball at BCC owned Ashton Court, to publicise its poor condition. Bristol City Council unexpectedly gave its permission and so we worked on the Ball organisation and design for 6 months, helped enthusiastically by artists Ann and Jerry Hicks. Our insurers then required assurance from BCC that the house was safe which was not forthcoming.
Peter Floyd (left) and Charles Gregory carry in some of the artist-design decorations for the ball.
The state of the house was revealed to the public which was furious. BCC was astonished that anyone was interested – However, the Ball had lost its venue.”
With the Bristol Society of Architects turfed out of Ashton Court they urgently looked for alternative venues to host their Restoration Ball. It so happened that Kings Weston house was shortly to be vacated by Bath University and with an uncertain future, so the titular restoration might equally apply to Vanbrugh’s mansion. With the help of Professor Ken Panter Kings Weston was acquired for one night only. Efforts were quickly refocussed on the new venue. The Evening Post reported on June 5th:
“Guests at tonight’s masked ball at Kings Weston House will be greeted by a scene to suit just about every taste. Wildly abstract works art by students of architecture will be dotted among potted palms loaned by Bristol Corporation parks department. And musically the sounds will range from Avon Cities jazz to period music played by a consort of recorders on the magnificent staircase of the Vanbrugh mansion.
A team of helpers led by ball-committee chairman Mr Peter Floyd, and member of the City Planning Department, were scurrying about Kings Weston today getting everything ready for the 350 guests who are paying four guineas a head for the pleasure. Mr Martin Fisher has been up night after night with his team of electricians devising lighting effects which will be the star attraction. Fifty spotlights, 30 stage lights and some cube-shaped lanterns will be dotted around the house. And from the outside Kings Weston will be flood-lit, providing a spectacle for the drivers passing along the M5.Groups of helpers have devised different decorative schemes for the sitting-out rooms on the ground and first floor. One has been transformed into a leafy bower, filled with borrowed rhododendrons, ivy, and laburnum. Others have been draped in fabric to give a tent-like effect. Mr Floyd, organising the ball for the Bristol Society of Architects, tells me it’s been touch-and-go to prepare the mansion in the two months since the decision to cancel the Restoration Ball at Ashton Court. “but we’ll be alright on the night,” he said.
Masks will be judged at midnight, soup and rolls will be served to those in need of sustenance at 1:30am, and Morris Dancers will be performing on the lawns during the evening.
Today’s coffee shop terrace seen in 1973, hinting at the plight of house and park at this time.
The ball more or less coincides with the departure from Kings Weston of the Bath University department of architecture. Professor Ken Panter said: I’m sad to leave, but it will be better for the students to move to Bath. We’ve been out on a limb here.”
The architects are hoping the ball will stimulate interest in the future of Kings Weston. There are awful fears that if nobody takes it over, it could, like Ashton Court, crumble once more into a state of decay.”
As it happened, the ball proved the catalyst for the house’s next evolution. Peter picks the story up again:
“Martin Kenchington, Avon County Architect, was at the Ball. He knew that Avon Police were looking for a building, persuaded them to take it and was able to save the structure and replace the famous arcaded chimneys.
The Ball at Kings Weston was a success as well as prolonging the life of two important buildings. As chairman, I was last man out and at 4am the next morning I proposed to my partner, who accepted – two buildings – and a wife!”
Last month we reported on the ‘official’ opening of the Kings Weston Iron Bridge, but on Sunday 14th July the community celebration very much in the earlier event to shade! The event enjoyed a lovely sunny afternoon and attracted around 200 guests who were serenaded by the Bristol Ukulele Band as they gathered at the Kings Weston end of the bridge. Proceedings began with the 126th Scouts (Sea Mills) parading over the newly open bridge with their troop banners arriving in the informal arena at the west side.
Janet Poole receives flowers in thanks on behalf of KWAG. (Bob Pitchford)
Sea Mills Scouts parade their banners over the bridge.
Janet Poole, who has been so instrumental in promoting and championing the repair of the bridge took a stand on the newly finished steps and addressed the crowd. She undertook to thank everyone involved with the project including the construction workers and support from KWAG during the lengthy process getting it reinstated. In gratitude for her tireless work, KWAG’s chair presented a bouquet of flowers on behalf of everyone who’d missed the bridge over the last nine years. Finally a ribbon was strung between the railings and ceremonially cut to re-inaugurate the historic structure.
A collection held during the event raised £121 towards KWAG’s Big Bulb Plant this October, for planting of daffodils either side of the bridge. The bridge was in very active use during event, with many guests taking their first opportunity to cross the bridge in its new raised location. Louis, a twelve year old drummer, closed proceedings with a rousing session in the sun. At the generous invitation of John Barbey of Kings Weston house, many people sauntered back to the vaulted coffee shop where complementary drinks and cake rounded off a beautiful and memorable celebration, a fit conclusion to a long-running saga.
With the prospect of the reopening of the iron bridge on the horizon, thoughts might turn again to exploring the walk across and up Kingsweston Hill. A recent addition to the council’s Know Your Place website raised our curiosity, so we set off in search of it. Our quarry was a boundary stone described as having the letters JPM on one side and JSH on the other. These aren’t just random jumbles of letters, but the initials of two friends, each the owner of a grand estate on either side of the hill. JPM was John Philip Miles, the mega-wealthy merchant and banker of Leigh Court, who in 1833 bought the Kings Weston estate. JSH was John Scandrett Harford the owner of Blaise Castle Estate. The two had been brought together through a merger of the Miles & Company Bank and the Harford & Co Bank in 1820.
Philip Miles’s initials on the west side of one of the boundary markers of 1833. The opposite side bears those of John Scandrett Harford.
Portrait of Philip John Miles (1773-1845).
Kings Weston had been on the market for a number of months, marketed as “forming a most desirable situation for the erection of one or more villas”. The sale was consequence of the death of the 21st Baron de Clifford, the last in the line of Southwell men who’d owned house and estate since 1679. The vendor was approached in July 1833 by Harford, offering £206,000 for the whole. Negotiations continued, with Harford the expected purchaser until, at the last minute, his name was changed on the contracts for that of Philip John Miles, probably to some surprise on behalf of the seller.
For a number of weeks, Miles and Harford had been colluding over the purchase. Miles, perhaps concerned that the public knowledge of his huge wealth would damage his bargaining position, agreed with his friend that he’d act on his behalf in all matters of the sale. That way a sale could be agreed at a reasonable price, eventually £210,000, without arousing suspicion. For his part, Harford was to have sections of land for himself and there appears also to have been some agreement over the transfer of paintings from Miles’ collection.
Locations of the three stones (BS and ‘Stone’) marked on the 1880s First edition of the Ordnance Survey map.
At the far east end of Kingsweston hill are three marker stones, each with the initials of the two gentlemen, and each a concrete testament to the agreement between them. Parts of the Echo Gate, Arbutus Walk, and the Blaise side of the hill became Harford’s and the new boundary between the properties was marked with these stones. Two are still prominent along the path, but the third, marked BM (boundary marker) lower down the hill is yet to be located.
Harford’s initials on the opposing side of the stone
This month our regular working party update takes the form of a report on the archaeological exploration volunteers undertook in the View Garden in January. This will be just a summary, our full report gives much greater background and detail on what we discovered.
At the start of the year KWAG identified four areas for investigation in the View Garden, the area of the walled gardens to the north of Napier Miles Road. Our ambitions were to understand more about some lost garden structures and their appearance. Just behind the gateway into the area from the east was a raised bank coinciding with the location of a small building at the head of a long axial path on the historic Ordnance Survey maps. A few well-aimed kicks at the ivy had shown there to be something here, but only a concerted effort might uncover more. The location of Bewy’s Cross was entirely lost, and it was impossible to visualise where it once stood. Here then, was another target for exploration: to locate the location on the ground. Finally, two areas of the woodland floor where ornamental stonework stubbornly clung on were likely the sites of two sets of steps set out along the axial path heading in the direction of a former viewing point at the far west of the garden. The two sites together offered a good opportunity to get a glimpse of the intended ornamental aspirations of the garden’s creators.
Our ambition has been simply to uncover and record rather than to make more invasive investigations into lower levels, adding “flesh to the bones” of the Victorian era gardens, giving them a new and amplified significance as part of the Grade II Listed Registered Historic Landscape.
Mr Elms stands resting against Bewy’s Cross in 1950, shortly before it was dismantled and moved.
Bewy’s Cross: The week before the work started a new photo was discovered in Bristol Archives. Showing the site in 1950 the figure posing on the steps of the cross is Mr W T H Elms, Avonmouth Churchwarden, who had freshly uncovered the cross by pulling ivy off. This was undertaken as part of the final, ultimately unsuccessful, campaign to have the cross moved to the churchyard in Avonmouth. This is the only known photograph of the cross in its View Garden location, but so little recognisable detail in the background made it difficult to pinpoint where the cross had stood. Instead, we relied on a rough measurement taken from the historic maps, a small raised area with a number of self-seeded sycamore trees surrounding it. Digging quickly revealed a regular gravel surface just 6 inches below the ground.. this was matched on the other side of the small mound by another gravel surface. When excavated further, both these areas terminated at pronounced edges running parallel to each other and demarking an area about 10ft 9inches between them. Digging down further in the eastern trench this clean edge continued beneath the gravel, bottoming-out 11inches at a hard flat reddish-brown clay surface assumed to be the natural earth. The area between the two surfaces was characterised by lots of loose rubble stone and dark mulchy earth.
A cross-section of the excavation.
We can be confident from the location and alignments that the gravel surfaces are likely to be the garden paths shown on the 1884 map that once ran around the cross. The space between them was where the cross was removed in about 1952, and the rubble infill probably to level the site again afterwards. Sadly, there was no other evidence that could help date when the cross first came to the gardens, and no sign of any earlier structures. The dig here has identified the location and orientation of the Cross within the View Garden, shown how the paths around it were simply formed around it, and provided answers on how it was left after removal. Finding the exact location has assisted in understanding how it related to other features, particularly the rockery to the east which was encountered as a feature along the path culminating at the cross. It may be that evidence of foundations, dating evidence, or of the features survive beneath the rubble stone pile, but the likelihood is that everything was removed.
Scale drawing of the excavations around the site of the lost cross.
The Garden Building: The garden building is the most complex and enigmatic of the structures explored as part of our dig. There’s scant documentary evidence for it, the only record of it having existed at all being three consecutive editions of the Ordnance Survey map between 1884 and 1916. These show it was a small structure set close against the Georgian wall defining the east of the garden, and at the head of a long formal path, since vanished. The site remained as a pronounced bank just to the east of the Georgian gate piers, and between two mature yew trees. An idle poke about ahead of December’s working party identified the potential for the survival of structures here, and its significance at the head of the axial path through the garden indicated it was of some importance in the garden design.
The foundations of the garden building with the steps in the foreground and the floor platform beyond.
The excavations identified the base of the with a monolithic stone and mortar feature forming the foundation of steps once aligned to the axial path, and a raised platform behind it from where an excellent view could be had down the length of the garden. The floor was laid with a lime mortar base of about 4 inches in depth, and later topped with a thin cement layer in which the pattern of tiles remained. The platform was laid on poor foundations and apparently directly onto the earth mound that ran along the Georgian Garden wall at this point. It has subsided to the rear and disintegrated closer to the wall. The remains delineated a square area roughly 7ft 4 inches wide, but sharply angled to the steps with a chamfered edge against them.
Excavations around the edges of both steps and floor platform provided no evidence of side walls or foundations for them, only loose infill not unlike the surrounding garden soils. The lack of foundations and roof or wall debris poses a puzzle. There are two possible explanations: Firstly, whatever superstructure there was may have been dismantled and taken away in its entirety, maybe for sale or reuse elsewhere. The very poor condition of the monolithic step base shows that the original stair treds and risers have been removed with considerable effort. These would likely have been of high-quality hard-wearing stone that had monetary value to whoever took them. Had the walls of the building been of high-quality materials these may also have succumbed to the salvage man, but this would not fully explain why no obvious foundations could be identified during excavation, there was no evidence of a systematic demolition process.
Measured plan of the garden building foundations
The other possibility is that the building was fabricated from timber and other organic materials; these would require a less substantial foundation and decay to nothing over time. Many garden buildings of the 18th and 19th Century were built in this way, with some making deliberate use of the rustic character of natural logs, boughs, bark, and thatch for picturesque effect. The slumping of the floor and disintegration of the edges could have begun early in the building’s history, without the support that more durable structures could have provided. The cement floor surface illustrates that efforts were made to repair the building at a time in the late 19th or early 20th Century when Portland cement became more commonplace. From the variation in thickness, the cement looks to have been applied as a levelling screed to compensate for the slumping floor level. Care appears to have been taken in the restoration, with the original floor tiles lifted and re-laid on the new surface. However, most of the subsidence should be attributed to a time following the building falling out of use and its walls and floors vanishing. The nearby yew tree may also have accelerated the disturbance of the structures.
3D scale model of the garden building suggesting its appearance as based on the excavated remains.
With its dominant position raised up at the commencement of the axial path this building had a key role in the design of the View Garden. Its generally small size limits likely uses to which it could be put, so the likelihood is that it was a covered garden seat from which the Italian-style gardens could be enjoyed at leisure. It’s likely to have continued in use as part of the View Garden, “the gem of the whole garden”, until the first quarter of the 20th Century, after which it probably decayed and was abandoned. The removal and salvage of valuable materials is unlikely to have preceded the death of Sybil Napier Miles, who delighted in her gardens and maintained ownership of the area until her death in 1948.
The steps:
Section of the decorative limestone edging, showing sockets and pegs in the end used to connect to the next section in the chain.
Two sets of steps appear on the Ordnance Survey maps set out towards the west end of the axial path through the garden. Fragments of masonry on the surface showing where volunteers should dig to uncover more. The lower set were heavily damaged and robbed-out, but the upper steps survived in better condition. Both sets provided important evidence of the intended appearance when built. Excavations at the upper steps revealed clear gravel surfaces at the top, and lower level, separated by roughly mortared brick and rubble stone foundations where three steps once descended. Another mortar area at the western end of this area, roughly in line with the end of the decorative edging, represented a final step set away from the main trio. The steps and gravel path were about 8ft 2inches wide, lined either end by decorative limestone edging stones. The edging was carved with a simple curved moulding. It had been robbed out almost entirely against the south side. Edging stones ran the length of all four steps, turning to terminate against a pair of limestone blocks at the top end. Beyond these blocks were further square stone slabs set at angles to the steps geometry.
Scale plan of the excavations at the upper steps.
The function of the limestone blocks is unclear. As found, with a smooth and level top surface, there were no indications that any of these blocks ever had any structure built upon them; Nor were any of the blocks of adequate depth to support anything of any scale or weight. Had they been the bases for garden urns or statues a degree of differential weathering would have been expected, highlighting the outline of any permanent feature stood upon them. The proximity of the Georgian glasshouse in the View Garden, the knowledge that the Miles Family took great pride in growing exotic plants, and the notion that the View Garden was set out as an Italianate garden, all suggest that these blocks could have formed seasonal platforms for the display of tender potted plants or citrus trees.
Looking east across the upper steps. The two levels of gravel path surface can be seen separated by the brick and rubble stone steps. Decorative edging survives on the left and the stone blocks are visible at the very top. A cross-section showing the excavated features.
The lower set of steps was of the same design. The edging here showed an elegant curve to the design at the bottom of the set of three steps. Evidence for the actual steps came exclusively from this set. A few fragments of pennant stone remained following theft and damage in about 2011, but enough to understand the character and dimensions of the large stones. The evidence uncovered allows us to make an accurate reconstruction of the two sets of steps. Remains indicate the View Garden was laid out to a high quality design, requiring the use of expensive materials and significant building work. They show the importance of the axial path through the gardens, adding emphasis to the viewpoint found at its western end and the lost building at its east. The importance of the viewpoint, the raison d’etre of the garden, has been largely lost by the gradual growth of trees obscuring the views once celebrated. The design of the garden and other anecdotal evidence suggests that it was laid out in the 1860s. It incorporated the existing Georgian walls and glasshouse, and Bewy’s Cross into its design, adding the new formal path to focus attention on views. One reference to this as an “Italian” garden would fit the Victorian obsession with the Italian Renaissance and the design features introduced at this period.
An impression of how the view along the axial path might once have appeared. The lower and upper steps are lined with potted citrus trees and in the distance the garden building presides over the whole scene.
Next month we’ll report on a few surface finds from the area, but if you can’t wait until then, you’ll find everything in the full report now available on our website If you’d like something more interactive, you can explore our 3D scans of the excavated areas:
Since WWII, until recent years, many people worried about the gradual decline of Kings Weston house and grounds during continued institutional use. No less so than when the building was in occupation By Bristol College of Science and technology. Initially moving departments from Ashley Down Campus in 1961, their plans for an extensive concrete campus and the change into a university caused local alarm, the scale of the planned facilities concerning even the Council Planning department. Eventually, resistance to the proposals meant the college were forced to look elsewhere for new premises, landing on a site outside Bath where Bath University was eventually founded.
However, not everyone at the college was oblivious to the importance of Kings Weston house. Appropriately enough, it was the architecture department that were installed under the headship of Professor Kenneth Panter. He was a man with the dedication and knowledge to begin restoration work on the building and reverse some of the vicissitudes inflicted on the place since 1938. Since that time the house had become a buildings site, before being hastily patched up for wartime occupation by the military. At the end of hostilities, it became the meanwhile home to Lawrence Weston a primary school. Neither of these temporary uses of the building had much care for the heritage features of the property. By 1961 it was described as “seedy and down-at heel”, with “tottery” chimneys and broken windows. The school had covered the mahogany doors with white paint, and the collection of paintings had been moved to the safety of the city Museum and Art Gallery.
the only photo found of Professor Panter posed in front of one of the fireplaces.
Professor Panter commissioned urgent works to halt decay, but perhaps the biggest challenge of his eight years with the house was repairing the famous skyline. The monumental chimney arcade had been dismantled between 1959 and 1960, the Ministry of Works having “agreed that the chimneys must be taken down because they are actually dangerous.” Scaffolding had been in position so long that it was “in danger of taking root”, was “festooned” around the remains of Vanbrugh’s chimney arcade.
Recognising the importance of the chimneys to Vanbrugh’s design, Panter secured public money to rebuild them. Finally, by September 1968 the press was able to report that a new Doulting stone arcade was being hoisted into place. Towards the end of the department’s time at Kings Weston, Professor Panter was able to proudly tour reporters round the restored building with 120 students filling its rooms. Many works had been undertaken so fastidiously that the efforts required could hardly be guessed at. The hanging staircase had new beams inserted imperceptibly to replace failed Victorian ones, the ceiling of the Saloon at the front of the house had been strengthened with steel beams threaded carefully through the historic fabric, and historic plasterwork was consolidated and pinned back to walls and ceilings.
A rare view of Kings Weston house without it’s famous chimneys. Painted by George Holloway, this must date to between 1960 and 1968 when the chimneys were rebuilt.
The newspaper reported the headless statue from the Echo had been retrieved and that the Professor was offering a reward for the student who succeeded in finding its lost head in the grounds.
As they toured the ongoing works, government minister Lord Kennet and Lord Hailes, chairman of the Historic Buildings Council, praised the school of architecture for their work to reinstate the chimney arcade. The school had spent more than £40,000 on works, £10,000 on the arcade alone, with the bulk of that having been secured from the HBC. This was Panter’s crowning achievement at Kings Weston. He continued with the architecture department when it moved to the new bath Campus in 1970 and the next organisation to occupy the house, Bristol Constabulary, were far less caring of the building.
We can’t find much more information about Professor Kenneth Panter and his efforts at Kings Weston. It’s a shame that, as someone so closely involved with protecting the house, his role is not better known. Naturally, there’s little evidence of his work left now, but that’s just what good restoration should be.
One historic feature of the estate remains shrouded in mystery: the lost windmill on Kingsweston Hill. By chance we rediscovered the remains on a recent walk across Kingsweston Hill, and they remain as a pronounced landscape feature. It’s often been mistaken for a burial mound, of which there are several across the hill, and occasionally as the remains of a Roman signal station or lighthouse.
The location of the old windmill on Kingsweston Hill in relation to other features.
The windmill shown on the 1720 estate plan with a roof and sails.
Already, by 1772, it was described as an ‘old’ windmill and is shown on the estate plan of that date standing just within the boundary of the Tithing of Kings Weston. The earliest reference to it appears to be from an earlier such plan from 1720 where it’s shown, perhaps emblematically, as a tower with a rounded top and four arms for sails, but, surely an “old” building would have stood for more than 50 years? Had it already fallen into disrepair by 1772? The origins of the building are unclear.
The remains surviving on the hill are now hidden somewhat by self-seeded trees that have scattered themselves across the site, but close inspection is worthwhile. There remains a significant mound with a hollow dip in the centre. Loose stonework sits half-buried around the remains and covered in ivy. The ring is about 7m in diameter and 1m in height, but the outline of the original building is likely to have been blurred by the walls falling outwards giving it a broader outline. It was clearly a circular masonry tower when first built.
It occupied a prominent and fittingly exposed location on the hill until trees grew up encroaching onto the open downland in the Nineteenth century. The wind coming up the Severn must have proven a regular if occasionally violent source of power. The mill had certainly fallen out of use by 1768 when a French Colonel was sent to spy on British interests. He recorded that the tower of the old mill was in use as a lookout in times of war, indeed, it was drafted into use for such in 1804 when a flagstaff was erected on it for signalling during the Napoleonic Wars.
The windmill is depicted punctuating the skyline of Kingsweston Hill in 1799. Blaise Castle is visible to the left of the foreground tree.
Several Georgian drawings and prints confirm that the tower remained to a substantial height and remained a significant feature, complementing the silhouette of Blaise Castle folly as an eyecatcher on the horizon. Perhaps its strategic military use ensured it was maintained at least as long as the country was threatened, but by about 1820 it vanishes. Its fate is as unclear as its origin; perhaps it was dismantled by the 22nd Lord de Clifford, robbed for its building material, or dismantled as a handy source of stone to burn in the nearby limekilns. Whatever happened to it, the surviving earthworks present an intriguing opportunity to excavate it and discover its secrets!
KWAG usually scans archives, libraries, auctions, and private collections in search of new pieces of the Kings Weston history jigsaw, but we recently came across something that had evaded our radar last year. Kings Weston house is already home to a majestic full-length portrait of Lady Elizabeth Cromwell, who married Edward Southwell in 1703. Edward, or Neddy, went on to rebuilt the mansion later that century, but his wife was at least his equal. Around the time of their marriage Lady Elizabeth – Betty to her friends and family – became the muse of Godfrey Kneller, one of the foremost portraitists of his age. Kneller made more paintings of Lady Elizabeth than any other sitter, about ten more-or less.
Reputedly he was obsessed by her and resented her marriage to Southwell, but continued to paint her subsequent to that union. In July 2022 a significant painting we’ve been unaware of went under the hammer at Sotheby’s. It depicted Lady Elizabeth in a fashionable pose, as shepherdess seated in a landscape, holding a floral garland, a lamb by her side. We’ve not yet worked to establish whether it was one of those that hung at Kings Weston, the Southwell’s London house, or elsewhere. With an estimate of £20,000-£18,000 it’s perhaps best we missed the sale!
The last volunteer working party of 2023 continued work around the View Garden adjacent to the old Stables on Napier Miles Road. Cherry laurel was again our target and the dense thickets along the west side of the lost garden area as well as another spot of interest; this was what looks to be another designed rockery area next to the original viewpoint at the far north-west of the garden site.
The thicket of laurel along the edge of the path to the viewing platform (on the left) taken looking north-west from the sweet chestnut tree.The same cherry laurel disappears to reveal the impressive sweet chestnut.
It’s been satisfying to address the encroachment of the laurel across this area, where felling gives such an instant impact. Volunteers worked quickly on the area around the viewpoint, transforming it before lunchtime and revealing a huge sweet chestnut tree that much have once formed part of the Victorian garden design. Sadly, any prospect from the viewing point across the Severn would be impossible to restore for the number of trees that now obscure it.
Animation showing the impact of removing the invasive cherry laurel from the road junction between Kings Weston Land and Napier Miles Road.
Work along Kings Weston Lane Removed the errant laurels that threatened to push out across the road. The removal of these has also improved the visibility on the awkward junction with Napier Miles Road and the entrance to Kings Weston house itself, the removal of the dense shrubbery having opened a clearer view in the mirror used to check oncoming traffic coming up the hill.
The open space now restored on this corner still retains the native trees that have seeded themselves through the laurel, but the rest would be a good spot for the grubbing-up of brambles and reseeding with meadow grass. The now-open bank along Napier Miles Road also offers an opportunity for bulb planting in the Autumn.
Clearance of the area seen looking from the south, with the Victorian rockery in the middle distance.
After it first featured in the popular BBC series in 2017, Kings Weston house again took a cameo role in the Doctor Who Christmas special last month. Much of the episode ‘The Church of Ruby Road’, the first full episode with new Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa, was filmed around Bristol, with the stair hall at Kings Weston the backdrop to a nasty accident involving Davina McCall and a Christmas tree. Fortunately, (spoilers) the Doctor returned through time to save her.
