Just released is our set of before and after photos of our last month working along Penpole Point towards the Dial. As always it is so difficult to really give an impression with these  photos of quite how much has been done. I think everyone was “feeling the burn” at the end of this month’s working party as we cleared the brambles and undergrowth back as far as the estate wall below the stone dial on Penpole Point. Perhaps the most telling of the images are those taken from the wall looking up towards the dial, but we recommend you go and take a look for yourselves now we’ve reached that goal!

A few of the photos are shown here, but for the full gallery head here

Looking from the Compass Dial back towards the ruins of Penpole Lodge. The wall of brambles and undergrowth can be seen on the left

The high isolated location of the Compass Dial is revealed

Looking from the Compass Dial back towards the ruins of Penpole Lodge. The wall of brambles and undergrowth can be seen on the left

Cleared undergrowth revealed a whole new extension to the landscape

Looking from the Compass Dial back towards the ruins of Penpole Lodge. The wall of brambles and undergrowth can be seen on the left

A new gallery has been added showing some of the activities our members were engaged in in March clearing the undergrowth as far as Penpole Point and the stone Dial. Many thanks to Bob Pitchford for taking these photos and letting us post them here. Full gallery of images is available HERE!

Join us this Saturday for our final big push to clear Penpole Point as far as the Stone Dial! We made huge progress in January and February, but we need all the help we can get this coming Saturday 15th March to achieve our goal.

As usual we will be starting off at 10am and meeting opposite Oasis Academy on Penpole Lane, but volunteers are welcome along any time until we finish at 3:30. Come along wearing suitable clothing for the weather and we can provide tools and gloves suitable for removing the brambles and self seeded sapling standing in our way. Get in touch if you need more details drop us a line.

If you aren’t able to lend a hand why not come to Kings Weston to see the daffodils and maybe come along and say hi on your way.

Otherwise we hope to see you there this weekend!

It’s been a good week for adding to the Twentieth Century History of Kings Weston. Today we have acquired a new photo of the house in its time as an Auxiliary Hospital during WWI. But can you help us?

The original image comes from a postcard posted in 1916 and shows some of the patients of the hospital gathered on the main steps in front of the house. Most of them look very sternly towards the photographer and amongst them you can pick out some of the injuries they had picked up on the Front that caused them to be sent back to England for care. You’ll notice a fair few have arms in slings or hidden under jackets.

All of them are wearing  ‘Hospital Blues’  a form of uniform that was adopted for use rather than military uniforms in hospitals. It consisted of a white shirt, a bright red woven tie and a blue jacket; all of which can be seen in this image. The regimental badges were often pinned to the lapels, but where caps weren’t available soldiers were permitted to wear their uniform ones.

This is where you might be able to help us in identifying where some of these soldiers came from. The Gloucestershire Regiment’s cap badge with the Sphinx is easily identified, but can you spot any others that might help identify any of the soldiers? Drop us a line if you can help.

A wonderful photo has kindly been sent to us of the scouts at Kings Weston on the eve of the Second World War. After the death of the last Squire, Philip Napier Miles, the estate was sold off in various portions. Our understanding is that Bristol City Corporation bought much of the land including Penpole Wood with the intention of leasing it to the city’s scout troops as a camping ground.

We were delighted to discover that a record of the years that they used Kings Weston exists and we were sent this image by Peter Laurie who is recording the journal of scout leader G.K.N. Webber for Mrs Mary Lowden before it is transferred to the Bristol Record Office.

This photo was taken from just below Penpole Wood, about where Mancroft Avenue now lies, and looks across the park towards Kings Weston House in the distance behind the tree. The old kitchen range of the house is still apparent and dates this photo to either summer 1937 or 1938, before work on converting the building into QEH school started. It is a poignant image knowing that many of the scouts would soon have enlisted in the armed services as the Second World War broke across Europe, but this sunny afternoon and the group enjoyment of erecting the camp flagpole is a million miles away from the threats the future held.

Come and hear the dawn chorus at Kings Weston with expert ornithologist Ed Drewitt.
Announcing our first public event of 2014 coming up in April; a dawn chorus walk with Ed Drewitt. Ed’s walks always prove popular and this will be just the right time of year for the best discoveries in the park. Check the details on our poster here with full details of the event which will be run on Saturday the 12th April. Please get in touch on KWAG@theweasels@plus.com or telephone 07811 666671 if you would like to book yourself on the walk. The event will cost £5 and be open for everyone. please feel free to forward this on to anyone else you think may be interested.

You might have noticed we’ve been a little quiet, but this is because we have EXCITING NEWS! Following our sneaky preview a couple of weeks ago that we have forthcoming research progress we can now reveal that we have sourced a huge new archive of material regarding Kings Weston and the family that once lived there. We are delighted that the present Lord and Lady de Clifford have asked KWAG to transfer their family records, those of the Southwell family and their heirs,  to the Bristol Record Office to form part of the public collections there.

We have been very privileged in being able to go through the large volume of material and there are some really exciting finds coming out of it already!

Amongst the hundreds of correspondence there is a wonderful and almost unbroken set of letters sent by Katherine Southwell to her Son Ned (Edward Southwell III). She relays all the tittle tattle from court and goings on at Kings Weston to him as he travels Europe for two years before returning to Kings Weston to started remodelling the gardens and house.

We are continuing through these as we type, but there we are particularly excited by the confirmation that the landscape designer Thomas Wright can now be directly identified as working at Kings Weston in 1762. We know too that the carriage drives were laid out around Kings Weston Hill in 1831, and this delightful excerpt of Katherine’s letters comes from 1749 and sent from Downpatrick, the Southwell’s most important Irish estate:

“…above them is a fine ruined Cathedral, near it is such a round tower as as Killkenny. Your Papa has walled and planted the churchyard belonging to it between that and the almshouse Mr Trotter has planted a grove which, when grown will be very pretty, in the middle of it the statue of Jupiter which went from Kings Weston, who is now called St Patrick, and now with his companion Vesta, now St Bridget, is had in great veneration by the poor Irish who rub their beads and say their Ave Marias before them”

Downpatrick Cathedral before its reconstruction in the early C19th

A brief visit yesterday to Kings Weston revealed that work on the new dog poo and litter bin has begun. The concrete base has been poured in a position behind the Echo and close to the path crossing the Iron Bridge. Hopefully the bin itself will be in soon too.

The fallen tree across the Echo path was also in the process of removal with rangers from Blaise Castle estate busy sawing it into manageable chunks for removal. Finally we were delighted to see that the scaffolding has finally come down from the front of Kings Weston House giving the first uninterrupted views of Vanbrugh’s house in many decades.

Park Rangers tackle the fallen tree over the Echo Path

Concrete base goes in for the new dog waste and litter bin at Kings Weston

Once again our working party got away with the weather! What was forecast to be a stormy, wet day actually transformed into a sunny afternoon and although were were  reduced in volunteer numbers we managed to achieve an enormous amount.

Swathes of brambles have been removed as well as a number of saplings, opening up views between the ruins of Penpole Lodge and the dial once more. Take a look at our gallery to see exactly the difference we made in just five hours last Saturday.