For the first time, the history of Kings Weston house has been accurately delineated in print. A new biography of the architect Sir John Vanbrugh has just been published, one that finally sets out the dates for design and construction accurately.

Author and former director of the National Gallery Sir Charles Saumarez Smith, has been in dialogue with KWAG for the last couple of years, sharing research and thoughts on the book. We have been delighted to support his work and have been kindly mentioned in the acknowledgements.

The book focusses on Vanbrugh’s architectural work in the context of his life experiences and personality. It adds colour to the man’s character and shows how he used his charm and enthusiasm to convince patrons of his ability to execute extraordinary projects with relatively little experience.

Kings Weston is well covered in the book, with seven whole pages. With the accurate start-date of the house finally confirmed in print as 1712, this is the first book to be able to show how the design and construction fits into the wider picture.

We were delighted to be able to attend the book’s launch at Wigmore Hall in London, where Charles Sumarez Smith gave a fascinating and illuminating lecture on Vanbrugh’s transformation from playwright to architect.

The book is published by Lund Humphries and would make an ideal Christmas present for anyone interested in Kings Weston’s famous designer and the backdrop against which it was built.     

There’s been some exciting developments at the Kings Weston Roman Villa. The ancient ruins lay undisturbed beneath the grounds of Kings Weston house, unknown to its owners for more than 1,500 years, until Lawrence Weston estate was laid out over the northern part of the landscape parkland in the late 1940s. The remains were badly damaged before their significance was realised in 1947. Several seasons of archaeological work between 1948 and 1950 revealed the extent of the main villa building including decorative mosaic pavements and a bath complex. The remains were consolidated and the site made a branch museum of the city’s Museum and Art Gallery. Whilst there’s been regular new work on understanding and interpreting the site and its finds since the 1950s, there’s been little archaeological work done on the site…. Until now!

Some of our Bristol members might have seen an awful accident in October last year reported in the press, when a car came off the road and crashed into the site. Fortunately, the vehicle made little impact on the roman remains themselves, hitting the surrounding fence and timber museum building only. The need to put this damage right, a small grant, and the desire to make the site more accessible has enabled the museum and archaeologists to commission new survey work.

Much modern archaeology depends on non-invasive techniques rather than the traditional digging of trenches. Ground Penetrating Radar is now regularly used to explore below ground; we’ve even had areas around Kings Weston house surveyed before now. It was this type of survey that was recently undertaken by Wessex Archaeology on the open grass areas immediately surrounding the museum’s boundary fence and the results have been remarkable. The full report can be read here. 

Despite a lot of interference due to modern features like the pavements, the geophys results have identified more buildings to the west of the villa, and of formed surfaces that might be interpreted as trackways, yard surfaces, and internal floors. The remains are at a similar level to the existing Roman structures, so can be confidently dated to about the same era. A few features deserve further focus here.

 The south edge of the site, pale green on the plan, suggests a made surface running east-west across the site and possibly continuous with the clay floor identified in the post-war excavations. The location of the villa in the landscape, and this surface might represent an historic track passing across the front of the villa and perhaps a yard in the newly surveyed area. Projected eastwards, any road may have connected with several other Roman sites identified in Lawrence Weston. It’s a remote possibility that the Roman track alignment perpetuated into the modern era as a farm track known to have been in existence by 1720, and surviving in some form until 1947.

Below: The location of the Roman villa shown on maps of 1720, 1772, and 1946 and its relationship with an historic track passing through the historic parkland. 

The wall foundations, dark blue on the plan, clearly follow the same geometry as the villa itself, a strong indication that they were related and probably existed together. A north-south wall on the east side of the site seems to have matched another in the excavated area, leaving a gap of no more than 2m between them. It’s an odd arrangement; could it have been a narrow passage or lane? A water pipe appears to pass diagonally through both areas, probably feeding the bath house, but from where did the water come?
 
Another, similar, arrangement of parallel foundation walls occurs halfway across the new survey area with a narrower channel between the two that has been interpreted as a channel or culvert, perhaps another water system. Whether these walls extended above the historic ground level isn’t clear, but a demolition rubble layer was only found associated with the north end of the feature and possibly associated with buildings there that may stand over the channel feature.

Probably the most exciting discover has been a building or complex of buildings gathered around the north-west corner of the site, structures previously unknown. The main structure is judged to be about 12m east-west and 8m north south, by no means large, but perhaps with attached structures and internal subdividing walls. Three areas of made floor surface have been identified at f,g, & h on the plan.
 

Pale blue areas are suggested as loose rubble and debris, perhaps from collapsed buildings, and mainly distributed along the north side of the new area and suggested buildings. The dark green features are peculiar, indicating stacked masonry features like pillar bases or pilae that supported heated hypocaust floors. Without any enclosing walls, it’s possible that they supported a building raised off the ground, like a granary.

The purpose of the buildings will remain a mystery until any physical archaeological intervention takes place, but the villa would have been at the heart of an agricultural estate. It’s barns and other farm buildings have not previously been located, so it’s possible the area to the west provided these functions. The potential identification of a granary supported on piers might support that suggestion; this is, however, all hypothetical at this point. 
 
The museum service hoped to explore this new area more in the future in old-fashioned archaeological dig where they hope to get community involvement. We’ll report more when details are released. But for now, why not take advantage of some forthcoming open days to quiz curators and archaeologists on the new discoveries? The villa will be open later this month as part of the national Festival of Archaeology for three days between  23 July—25 July. Full details can be found here as well as other dates this year when the villa will be open to the public

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If it wasn’t for a couple of Bristol architecture students, J.B. Ackland and J.W. Tanner we’d know so little about Penpole Lodge, one of the lost garden buildings of Kings Weston. Surviving now just as a ruin, the building was once the culmination of views and walks through the landscaped grounds, but eventually succumbed to damage, decay, and cold Council pragmatism. Fortunately, before it was pulled down in 1950, these two students studiously recorded every detail.

It was commonplace for architecture students to be given basic tasks of surveying historic buildings to learn surveying, drawing conventions, building construction and technology, scale and proportion, and architectural history. A number of survey drawings of historic Bristol buildings survive from this period, each measured and drawn as part of these university exercises. In the late years of the war Ackland and Tanner either chose, or were allotted Sir John Vanbrugh’s Penpole Lodge to carry out their study.

By the time of their survey in 1943, the building was already badly damaged through neglect and the ill-treatment of the Home Guard when they commandeered it for a look-out. The Scouts, owners at the time, lamented the condition in which it was handed back to them. Sadly, the diary in which they recorded the decline didn’t note the attention of the Bristol students, but they must have had full and thorough access to be able to complete their set of drawings.

In all there are four drawings, split evenly between the two men. Tanner diligently tackled the plans, side elevation, and sections through the building, whilst Ackland took the more glamourous job of the main elevations and the tricky task of measuring and drawing all the profiles of ornamental details. Crisply drawn in pencil, they’re picked out in sepia coloured ink. They are an incredible and irreplaceable record of a building now lost, though it’s fate can hardly have been guessed by Tanner and Ackland at the time; It must have seemed unimaginable that demolition of a building by one of Britain’s most important architects could be contemplated, particularly at a time when so much had been lost in the war.

The drawings remain the only illustration of the original facade that faced Kings Weston house across the estate. Unsurprisingly, this façade was the more ornamental, being viewed by the Southwell family and their guests, and later the Miles family.  The many paintings, photos and postcards of the lodge are consistently taken from the common land on Penpole Point, never from the private grounds within. The interior too would be entirely unknown without the drawings, being the only record of the vaulted upper room and the layout of the tiny one-up-one-down cottage crammed into one side of the arch. KWAG based their 3D reconstruction and model of the building entirely on this precious record.

Thank heavens that, unlike most student exercises, the drawings didn’t end up in a bin or forgotten in someone’s attic. Fortunate too, they were kept together as a set, at least, for a long time. Long after the loss of Penpole Lodge three of the drawings were lodged with Historic England’s National Monuments Record in Swindon where they can still be inspected today. We’ve recently returned to re-record them for our records. The fourth, the building elevations, was apparently loaned by Ackland to Bristol Architect and author Mike Jenner, possibly at the time he was writing the seminal Bristol: an Architectural History, but never returned. We were fortunate enough to be provided with a copy by Mr Jenner, but since his death in 2017 the location of the original is unknown. If you can help track it down, we’d be pleased to hear from you.          

You can find a copy of the elevation drawing on our website here. 

Maybe our quickest working party ever happened last month. The plan was to plant the remaining 3000 daffodil bulbs left over from October’s event where 6000 had been planted. You might assume that, with a smaller group, it might have taken us most of the day; In practice, the soft ground alongside Shirehampton Road saw volunteers power through the task in time for lunch at the house! This really highlights the poor quality of the stony ground we encountered either side of the Iron Bridge and how it prolonged the agony.

We had a turn-out of ten for the task of continuing the planting of daffodils alongside the road. Previous years have seen gradual extension of the band of flowers eastwards as bulbs have allowed. Planted between the back of pavement and the line of rocks we’ve now extended daffodils two thirds along the length of Shirehampton Road. Our fingers are crossed for a good Spring display.