This year sees and important centenary for Kings Weston; in 1920 the house hosted composer Ralph Vaughan Williams at the invite of his friend Philip Napier Miles, and together with a gifted violinist Marie Hall, completed work on William’s most famous work The Lark Ascending. Philip Napier Miles was a gifted composer, one might hesitate in calling him an amateur as he’d both published scores and had choral and operatic work performed on the London Stage, but his principal occupation remained focused on being an active member of the landed gentry. It’s not known when Napier Miles and Vaughan Williams first became friends, but it may have been when the latter was studying under Hubert Parry in London. However it might have been its known that Vaughn Williams was a frequent visitor to Kings Weston as a focus for musical life in Bristol.

Napier Miles’s passion for music saw him found several choral societies, and a concert season in the City in the decades before the turn of the Twentieth Century. He keenly promoted classical music and opera and, at one point, was one of the promoters of a plan to develop a festival opera house in Glastonbury to celebrate native English opera and rival Germany’s Bayreuth. In 1902 Miles supported a planned public hall for Shirehampton. Donating land along Station Road, and the sum of £100, he also ensured that the design of the building was adapted for the sort of theatrical and musical performances he loved; this resulted in the addition of a gallery at the back of the hall as one of the more unusual features. He ensured that his estate architect Frederick Bligh Bond was secured for the project to ensure his brief was met for both performance and architectural display. The hall opened in 1904.

Napier Miles had also given musical and financial support to a struggling musician 16-year old Marie Hall at about the same time. He and some likeminded musical friends in Bristol had discovered her and her remarkable talent with the violin when she was virtually destitute and had ensured she’d acquired a full musical education in London and on the Continent. Their dedication paid off and she grew to become an internationally renowned artist, though continued a friendship with Napier Miles and was a frequent performer in Bristol’s concert programme. The stage was then set for these three people, Hall, Napier Miles, and Vaughan Williams, to come together at Kings Weston house and complete work on what would become one of Britain’s best-loved pieces of classical music.

The room used by Napier Miles as his music room is today the Kneller Room on the far northern corner of the main floor. It’s one of the smaller rooms in the house, but with once-spectacular views across the Severn. It was here, late in the year in 1920, that the trio would have sat around a grand piano and worked on a planned concert performance in Shirehampton Hall. For it Vaughan Williams had revived an earlier piece of music he’d begin in 1914 but had either never completed, or resolved to his satisfaction. This, The Lark Ascending, would showcase Marie Hall’s skills accompanied only by piano.The premiere was an unremarkable event. The concert was held on 15th December and went without notice in the local press. Marie Hall was accompanied by well-known pianist Geoffrey Mendham. Sadly we are left to imagine how it was received by the gathered audience that evening.

The Lark Ascending received more recognition when it was performed in London the following year with full orchestral accompaniment, but its true premiere is now commemorated at Shirehampton with a brass plaque mounted on the doors. With its romantic violin evocation of lark song strung through the score it’s become recognised as Vaughn William’s master work and is regularly voted as the nation’s most popular piece of classical music. It will be performed again to mark the centenary on the 15

^th December by the Bristol Ensemble and we’ll publicise the event closer to the time.  

https://www.bristolensemble.com/production/the-lark-ascending-centenary/

Since the closure of the iron bridge four years ago we’ve somewhat neglected the eastern part of the historic kings Weston estate incorporating Kingsweston Hill. The boundary identified by Historic England between the Kings Weston and Blaise Castle estates runs across the middle of the hill along the line of the reputed Roman Road that zig-zags between Sea mills and Lawrence Weston. However the eastern end of the Hill, including the Bronze Age encampment really falls within the historic bounds of Kings Weston. Until the 1800s the hill remained open grazed downland and the prehistoric monuments that stood there stood out in high relief on the horizon.   

The hill has been treated as common land for centuries, but it’s never known to have actually held that status officially. In the 1840s there were alarmed newspaper reports that the Miles family, who’d recently taken up residence in Kings Weston house, had set up gates and fences and were preventing the public from accessing that which they considered their own. The situation was rapidly resolved, but the privacy-loving miles family can’t have been comfortable with the constant traffic across the hill to take in the views.

It was these views, particularly the ones looking northward across the Severn towards Wales, that were a popular attraction for Bristol residents keen to escape the city for a few hours recreation. The hill was famed for much of the Nineteenth Century for its panoramic aspect, but today these have been replaced by dense woodland plantations established by the Miles family and the Southwells’ before them.

Already by the 1830s Limekiln Wood on the north side of the hill was well established, replacing the historic grassland, and Evergreens Wood and Southside Wood on the opposite side of the hill, followed. The lime kiln that gave the northern wood its name was established already in the Seventeenth Century and its setting-up is mentioned in documents written by Sir Robert Southwell. Limestone quarried from the slopes was ideal for burning to extract lime used in the building trade and agriculture. The kiln has long vanished, but formed an atmospheric landmark until the 1840s.

We recently discovered an auction lot of Kings Weston interest was coming up for sale shortly. It was a shock to find that Athelhampton House in Dorset was selling its entire contents, amongst which is a brass chandelier which formed the centrepiece to the main hall of Kings Weston until recent times.

The chandelier was part of the redecoration of the house in the mid-Eighteenth Century and forms part of its original interior design scheme. It disappeared from the house sometime in the 1960s or 1970s, sold-off by Bristol Technical College during their occupation of the building; it was replaced by a rather depressing and incongruous light fitting until this was replaced with a more suitable modern chandelier in about 2000.

We have known for some time that the original ended up at Athelhampton, though we’re also aware that there was never any Listed building consent for its removal. This has always led to the paradox that it was in another Listed building where it might contribute to the special interest, whilst it should still be in Kings Weston house. We assume that, as it is now being sold, that Historic England are satisfied that it’s not integral to Athelhampton’s importance as an historic property.

With the chandelier coming up for sale there are questions whether it should be returned to Kings Weston, having been removed without consent and against Listed Building legislation. For the moment the chandelier is up for sale by Duke’s auctioneers with a guide price of £2000-£4000. For anyone who might be interested in bidding on the lot and returning it to Kings Weston the auction is to be held on the 9^th of this month, and it’s Lot 11 in the auction which will be held inside Athelhampton House. It’s worth noting that the lucky buyer is required to dismantle and remove the chandelier at their own cost.   

The Echo at the end of the gardens from the house, was an important addition to the Kings Weston landscape in about 1724. Edward Southwell had finished work on the house itself and moved in in 1716 with his new wife Anne Blathwayt. Sadly Anne died the year after and it was a little while before Edward returned to his architect, Sir John Vanbrugh, to turn his mind to further elaborating the estate.Plans began in about 1720 when Edward began buying up land to extend the parkland, and had a map drawn up to further this expansion. We know from this that the long axial path from the house terminated at nothing more than a wall dividing the grounds from a public lane behind; parts of this was can still be traced in the rear structure of the present Echo building.

The echo at Kings Weston Was already a well knows acoustic feature. The gradually rising ground allowed sound to reflect back off the front of the house and echo back down the garden in a remarkable way. The termination of the axis from the house with a suitable celebration of this effect, and an eye-catcher from the house, would have seemed an ideal opportunity to provide an ornamental monument.

The Echo, as the pavilion was to become known, is one of the few buildings at Kings Weston where there are no original drawings known. In Bristol archives there is a design by Sir John Vanbrugh for another structure, an ornamental gateway that was to stand at the end of the terrace on the north side of the house; with its boldly handled rusticated piers and arches this has more than a passing resemblance to some of the features of The Echo. The drawing is dated 1724 and it is reasonable to assume that it echoed architectural developments at the other end of the garden at this time. This coming weekend we will try and compare the measurements of this drawing with those of the Echo and see what conclusions we might draw. The dramatic urns on the parapet of the finished building are also strongly redolent of Vanbrugh’s work, with a series of similar features in the gardens at Blenheim Palace.

In the tradition of gardens at the time the Echo would have terminated the long axis through the landscape with a series of formal gardens either side of it. There never seems to have been a viewing terrace on the roof of the building, which might have capitalised on views back to the house and across the landscape towards Bristol. Another drawing in Bristol archives does show the plan of a garden pavilion that would have afforded this; it had a single ornamental frontage with odd carved rear walls and a stair tower at its rear, but, other than its inclusion with other known  Kings Weston drawings, there is insufficient evidence to suggest it was even considered for Kings Weston.

The little building served no more elaborate purpose than a place to sit, admire the view back towards the house, enjoy the echo, and perhaps enjoy a summer meal. The arches were never glazed in, but the roof, that once sheltered visitors, disintegrated and collapsed in the 1950s; the scars of this can still be seen in the structure today. Efforts to demolish the garden buildings in the 1970s were fortunately resisted, and eventually the Echo was patched-up and restored.   The Echo remains an important landmark in the park, a focal point on the main walking circuit, and a Grade I Listed building. The gardens that once swept down the slope to the house have been overtaken by woodland, and views between the two buildings lost or diminished. Sadly the echo from which the building got its name has also been diffused. But this weekend we will be celebrating the building again by holding our Doors Open day event within it. Come along and find out more about the building and its history on one of our short tours to be running throughout the day.        

Ahead of August’s Working party, when we’ll be returning to Penpole Point, KWAG have produced a model of the long-lost Penpole Lodge, a building that remains with us only in ruin today. As with the reproduction statue described last month the model is intended to broaden understanding of the lost feature, and show what an imposing architectural statement it once was. In 2012 KWAG fully revealed and recorded the ruins with the assistance of South Gloucestershire’s county archaeologist, but the area is beginning to succumb to undergrowth once more.  

The building was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh as a belvedere and monumental landmark for Edward Southwell, and was designed to dominate the horizon in views from Kings Weston house. The building was a return commission for Vanbrugh who’d been responsible for the rebuilding of the house between 1712 and 1719. After its completion the pair looked to expand the parkland setting around the mansion and ornament it with fashionable garden structures, including Penpole Lodge.

Below: One of Sir John Vanbrugh’s proposals for penpole lodge showing the unexecuted colonnades on the shoulders of the gate

Below: one of Vanbrugh’s more robust designs for the building, circa 1724

Several drawings for the lodge exists showing variations on the design, one with a colonnaded veranda overlooking the Severn, but in the end a symmetrical tower built over an arched gate at the boundary of the private grounds was decided upon. It is dated to about 1724. Our reconstruction shows the building as-completed and recorded prior to demolition in the 1950s. We’re fortunate that students from Bristol University architecture school created a measured survey of the whole building in 1947, showing plans, sections, and key details, for it was to succumb to the wreckers in 1951 following decades of neglect, and the deprivations of wartime use by the Home Guard.

Whilst the Lodge appeared frequently in picture postcards of Penpole Point at the start of the Twentieth century these only captured the less ornamental side facing public common land. The façade facing Kings Weston house across the park was more refined and ornamental and only known to us through the 1947 drawings.  

We reported a few months ago about the Urban Buzz project and the new wildflower meadow seeded below Kings Weston house; we’re glad to say that the first year has proved a success with a large number of new native annual wildflowers having bloomed over the last couple of months. Yellow rattle last month preceded an unprecedented show of poppies over the last couple of weeks, along with many others. It’s important to note that these flowers are only the annuals, with the majority of perennial wildflowers unlikely to show unto next summer. We look forward to see the results!

It’s also been a pioneering year for the regrowth in Penpole Wood, where just three years ago there was nothing but cherry laurel. One of the advantages of re-covering areas we dealt with in 2016 is that we can appreciate quite what a difference volunteers have made. Although barren immediately after our operations areas have now exploded into new growth with many native woodland wildflowers broadening biodiversity, and offering new habitat and vitality to the woodland floor. If you can help identify some of these please let us know.

Of particular curiosity is the incredible growth of wild raspberries throughout the woodland areas. A resident told us some time ago that they recalled some that grew near the Echo, but the extent of the fruiting canes across the historic landscape is a surprise, particularly where the blight of laurel has been conquered.  

Something more new to the Kings Weston story is this small pencil sketch of the house viewed from Penpole Point. In the foreground is Penpole lodge, lost to the sledgehammers in 1951. Several similar views exist, but this one differs from all of them in the detail shown so must be an original scene. It dates to the 1820s and, in the distance, both Blaise Castle and the former windmill on the brow of Kingsweston hill can be seen. The windmill was partially reused during the Napoleonic wars as part of a signalling station, but disappeared soon after.

Something came to notice just recently that raises a few questions. A map of Bristol, an early production by the Ordnance Survey in 1826, has suggested a previously unknown garden feature in Penpole Wood. Looking closely at the detail it suggests that there may have been a pond in the area called Jubilee Clearing between Penpole Point and the cricket pitch.

The area still retains a number of unusual specimen pine trees, unusual species only recently introduced to the country in the Nineteenth Century. Along with a glade with a water feature they might have made an attractive garden. In 1826 Kings Weston was owned by Edward Southwell IV, the 21st Baron de Clifford. One contemporary wrote of him:

“The great enjoyments of Lord de Clifford when at home was planting shrubs and trees. Many thousands were planted under his directions. I can picture him now as I often saw him, a little insignificant man riding on a very quiet horse followed by John Webb, his favourite groom, to superintend operations.”

It is possibly him responsible for laying out whatever garden might have formerly been in this area. We hope to be able to inspect the map, currently in the British library, to look closer at the detail and hopefully come up with some answers in the future.