Check out KWAG’s shortlist film for the Heritage Angel Awards. The two-minute film showcases what KWAG have been up to and the impact of our work on the historic estate. KWAG’s section begins at 4mins 30 seconds.
There are just a few day left to register your vote to help put us in with a chance of getting the People’s Choice Award. We need your votes before midnight on Sunday 16th August. To register your vote head over to the Historic England website for the award here and vote here.
New additions to the park’s history
We’re always on the lookout for new historic material relating to the Kings Weston estate. If you have anything you can share with us, photos, memories or artefacts, we’d love to hear from you
This month several items have come to our attention. Above you’ll see an idyllic photograph of Shirehampton Park looking in the direction of Sea Mills in about 1880. The grove of pines was a popular spot for artists at this time, but the trees were probably planted much earlier, by Sir Robert Southwell in the late Seventeenth Century. They are a constant feature of Shirehampton Park through the 1720 and 1772 estate surveys and successive owners must have replenished and maintained the small plantation. This picturesque view shows the wooden fence that was erected to protect the public from the recently opened railway line that had been threaded through the park, along the banks of the Avon, in 1875.
Sadly this viewpoint and most of the pines were lost in in the 1920s when the Portway cut through this exact location.
We hope that someone out there can help with another discovery. We’ve acquired the scout badge illustrated here, but we are having difficulty in tracking down its history. Emblazoned with a crown (possibly symbolic of the “King” in Kings Weston?), a pole, and the words ‘Penpole District’ we believe it relates to the Bristol District Scout camp that was based in Penpole Woods between 1937 and 1947. During this time Penpole Lodge became the gateway into the camp site and was used by the older Ranger Scouts as their HQ.
A second image here shows the detail of a wartime photo posed in front of the gates of the now-ruined lodge and shows the plaques the Scouts attached to them. Is this the same logo as the badge we’ve acquired, was there a later Penpole District Scout Group, or is there no connection with the estate at all? We hope that someone out there might know and we hope that any former Scouts that remember their time at the Penpole camp might be able to help us.
These are exciting times for us. KWAG is in the running for a prestigious national award; the Heritage Angels awards. The awards are run annually by Historic England (English Heritage) and Andrew Lloyd Webber, and supported by the Telegraph. The awards celebrate the efforts of local people who’ve saved historic buildings and places, and this year our work on the Kings Weston estate has been nominated!
KWAG has been shortlisted for our work in the “other sites” category and we are up against just three other historic properties in England and Wales. We are also in the running for the “people’s choice” award, and for this…
WE NEED YOUR VOTE!
Details of all the short-listed projects in our category can be found here, and the on-line voting form is here. Voting closes at midnight on the 16th August.
Please, please, put us in with a chance of getting this national recognition for the estate, and for our efforts over the last four and a half years. We would be incredibly grateful for your help in bringing this accolade back to Kings Weston. Please forward this email to anyone you think might be interested, and help spread the word far and wide!
Our hopes are in your hands!
Thank you
from the Kings Weston Action Group.
A garden can be a very transitory thing. At Kings Weston we have the buildings, most of the remaining parkland features, and many mature trees, but we are missing an important dimension of its history; its flowers. To get an insight of how flowers might have been used at Kings Weston it has been helpful to try and understand the people who lived their and their passions. Research has recently uncovered details of the life of Sophia, Lady de Clifford, wife of Edward Southwell III, and has helped us gain new insight into the estate.
Sophia was from a wealthy and influential Irish family, the Campbell’s of Mouth Campbell, and married Edward Southwell in August 1765. Their marriage seems to have been one of love rather than simple convenience, though a substantial dowry would not have been unwelcome to Edward who had ambitious designs for his political career as well as for Kings Weston. Sophy, as Edward affectionately called her, bore nine children. In 1776 she became Lady de Clifford when her husband successfully established his claim to a Barony. Their happy life together was cut short suddenly when, in the following year, Edward died.
On his death their son, also Edward, was still in his minority, and executors took control of Kings Weston. Sophia received a regular allowance from the estate, but the house was no longer hers, and, now as the Dowager Lady de Clifford, she would have been obliged to start a new life for herself. It appears she had moved out by 1786 when a contract for maintaining the grounds by an external contractor, rather than staff, was agreed by the executors.
We have little personal detail about Sophia before this time – perhaps she was in the shadow of her husband – but in the decades that followed she made her own impression on the world, driven by a passion for plants. Starting first at a house she rented at Nyn Park, near Barnet, and later moving permanently to a villa in Paddington, she built up a nationally important and famous collection of exotic flowers brought there from all corners of the known world.
Between 1793 and her death in 1828 the popular botany journals of the time brimmed, not only with illustrations of plants she’d nurtured, but also great praise for her scientific approach to Botany which “all the collectors and professors of science stand much indebted for the zeal and patronage which her Ladyship has shown in her endeavours to promote it”. Titles such as Botanists Repository, Botanical Register, Exotic Botany and Curtis’s Botanical magazine all relied heavily on access to her unrivalled collection, and several plant species were named in 
honour of her (though subsequently names have altered). At least three books on the growing of flowers and other exotics were dedicated to her during the same period.
Many of her plants were grown from seed or bulb in her hothouses, stove houses, or conservatory, and in this way she was identified as the introducer into the UK of such plants as the Australian Waratah, and a South African Ixia. Some-such plants were amongst the only growing in Europe, and the collection boasted imports as far-afield as Minorca, the West Indies, Guinea, Ceylon, and Mauritius.
What then can this tell us about Kings Weston? Its certain that Sophia nurtured her fascination with flowers from an early age, and when she married Edward she would have found in him a shared interest in gardening. The design of the eating parlour fire surround with cascading roses, completed in the year of their marriage, is sure to have been designed to delight her and the incorporation of the two tiny forget-me-nots was a symbol of their union.
As the refurbishment of Kings Weston House continued Sophy’s taste must have begun to exert itself. Whilst Thomas Stocking’s stucco ceiling in the eating parlour was rigid and formulaic, that of the Drawing Room, designed the year following, is an explosion of flowers swagged, and re-swagged across the whole of its surface. The flowered theme was reprised in the design of the Saloon (Main Hall) where roses, tulips, jasmine, and more sprigs of forget-me-nots dance around the ceiling. 
Before their marriage Edward had already begun the construction of the walled gardens and stables behind the house on present Napier Miles Road, but it may have been to satisfy Sophy’s growing interest that in about 1772 a vast new glasshouse was constructed on a former orchard. Stretching over 30m in length, and carefully orientated southward to gain maximum benefit from the sun it once projected far above the roof of the adjacent stables as a major feature of the estate. Its ruins, still standing almost 7m tall, can still be found close to the stables and ice house.
The garden designer Thomas Wright greatly admired the glasshouse on a visit, but the French diplomat Malesherebes gives us the only scant detail as to what grew there. Writing in 1785, after Sophia had departed, he noted “the vast hothouses, and a house made entirely of glass, both walls and roofs, which is 54 feet long by 30 wide. The exotic plants think they are in the natural earth, and I have never seen such beautiful bamboos or Bengal figs anywhere“.
Whilst reforming the parkland of Kings Weston was the obsession of Edward, the gardens must surely have received attention from Sophy too. The 1772 estate plan by Issac Taylor offers tantalising suggestions of planting around the Echo, the ‘Terras’, and in other areas, where flowers may have played a more intimate role. Sadly we have nothing to tell us of what might have been, but for the fascinating legacy of Sophia, Lady de Clifford.
KWAG has now added links to its full back-catalogue of newsletters. If you’re interested in delving back into our archives flick back through our achievements here
On the 11th May we returned to continue work on our Lifting the Curtain project; restoring the visual connection between the South Walk and Kings Weston House by removing self-seeded saplings and undergrowth. The pictures rarely do a project like this justice as the sense of space can;t be conveyed in just a few shots, but there is a real feel of drama reinstated as you promenade up the South Walk and look down on the house framed through the mature parkland trees.
For a gallery of all the images take a look HERE
The park revealed beyond the trees
Looking from the South Walk towards the meadow
Documents reveal new information on New World plantations
Kings Weston has always had some low-key historic connections with the slave trade. Edwards Southwell II was MP for Bristol between 1739 and 1754, during which time he promoted the interests of Bristol’s Africa, Carolina and West India merchants. After the Southwells’ the Miles family had founded their immense fortune in shipping and plantations in the West Indies, but the infamous slave trade had been banned decades before their purchase of Kings Weston in 1835.
However, new information has come to light about actual plantations and slave ownership by Edward Southwell III in the colony of East Florida. Recently catalogued documents in Bristol Record Office tell the story of how Edward Southwell III entered into partnership with his father-in-law Samuel Campbell, and the latter’s brother in law Closworthy Upton, later Baron Templetown, to petition the King to be granted land in East Florida. The territory had entered into British hands in 1763 following the Seven Years’ War and land was progressively allocated by the crown for colonisation.
In 1766 the Crown granted the same amount of land to each of the three petitioners stating “In order to make a settlement thereupon” the King does “cause 20,000 acres of land to be surveyed in one continuous tract in such part of the province as the said Edward Southwell or his attorney shall choose not surveyed or granted to others” and “that the grantee do settle the land with protestant white inhabitants within three years”. The grant further demands that if any of the lands are suitable for hemp or flax production then this use should be given precedence.
With 60,000 acres between them the partnership sought suitable and experienced hands to develop them on their behalf. The services of William MakDougale [sic] were secured and he was dispatched with other eager planters and agents to set-out the claim. Land was secured on the east bank of Lake George, but MakDougale was concerned that the £2000 contributed by each partner would not be sufficient for the venture. In this respect he was entirely correct. The Southwell account books for the following years show a constant flow of large sums of money out to Florida for little return.
There was an enormous amount of fraud and corruption perpetrated by unscrupulous agents and planters in the colony, at the expense of their absentee landlords in England and Scotland. This, combined with the swampy land, poor resources, and occassional attacks by the Spanish, meant that Edward Southwell’s venture was probably doomed from the beginning. To make matters worse their planter, MakDougale, died in 1774 and the 60,00 acres were charged to another planter, James Penman to administer. Little appears to have been produced by the plantations, small quantities of timber and barrels of tar being the only exports, and after the death of Edward Southwell III in 1777 his executors were forced to come to terms with the scale of the losses he’d incurred.
In 1779 the plantation collapsed completely. Writing to Southwell’s executors Penman describes how he abandoned his own plantations, initially to find safer territory to settle following the outbreak of “the Spanish War, and then retreating to the main town St Augustine. He promised to take good care of the partnership’s 20 ‘Negro’ slaves who he took in with his own, but later sold at very poor prices, keeping the money for the expenses he’d incurred.
The venture had led to Edward Southwell becoming heavily indebted, and it is no surprise that the several English and Irish estates he owned, including Kings Weston, all had to be mortgaged for over £30,000 to help support the disastrous endeavour.
Join KWAG at an exclusive event in partnership with The Association of Gardens Trusts and Avon Gardens Trust in conjunction with The Garden History Society
Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown at Kings Weston: A Re-assessment
Research and Recording Study Day – Kings Weston, Bristol
Tuesday 22 September 2015 – 9.30 am to 3.45pm – £50
Exploring his Legacy of Comfort and Elegance
A Research and Recording Study Day to be held at Kings Weston, Bristol on Tuesday 22 September 2015. As part of the celebration of the Tercentenary of the birth of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, we shall be exploring the influence of Brown on a country estate situated on the outskirts of Bristol. Kings Weston has a long and complex history and the grounds have been variously associated with John Evelyn, Robert Mylne, Thomas Wright and Lancelot Brown, but lack of funding meant the estate had been neglected for too many years. This situation changed in 2011 when the Kings Weston Action Group was founded to protect the estate to fight for its future and protect its past.
The house we see today was designed in 1712 by Sir John Vanbrugh for Edward Southwell. Vanbrugh also designed other buildings on the estate that still exist although the massive terrace overlooking the River Severn was removed later in the eighteenth century when the formal gardens were swept away and replaced with a more naturalistic style of landscape design associated with Brown.
Our guest speakers will help us discover more about the Southwell family and the Kings Weston estate, the importance of Brown in the British landscape movement and a re-assessment of the influence of Brown at Kings Weston in the light of current research.
For more details and a booking form please Kings Weston flyer and booking form FINAL
Kings Weston FREE bat walk.
Come and find out about the wildlife of our historic estate after dark. Local expert, David Brown, and members of the Avon Bat Group will lead an expedition to find out about the different bat species living in the woodland. This is a wonderful chance to walk through the estate at night seeing and hearing some of its more elusive residents, and hopefully, a few owls, moths and other creatures too. This walk is free of charge, and supported by a Neighbourhood Partnership Green Capital Grant .
We will be starting from Shirehampton Road Car Park, on Friday 29th May
Please arrive at 8.45pm. The walk will commence at 9.00pm and finish around 10.30 pm.
Please make sure you have:
suitable footwear
jacket for when it gets cooler
a torch
water
This walk is free but you must book! Places are limited so book early. Accompanied children are very welcome.
E-mail kwag@theweasels.plus.com or phone 07811 666671 to book your place
The Noise turning back the clock in Jubilee Clearing
We know that many local members of KWAG recall with affection their time camping in Penpole Wood when it was used by Bristol Scout troops between 1937 and 1947. The accompanying, atmospheric, image of Penpole Wood (right) shows shows it in the final year of operation as the District camp. During the period we understand that ‘Jubilee Clearing’ in Penpole Wood offered the most choice location to pitch your tent. The area had, until recent efforts, almost vanished into the woodland.
On 2nd May this year a large group of The Noise volunteers from Christian groups around Bristol came to Penpole Woods and commenced on the clearance of the old camp area. As with much of Penpole Wood, since the Second World War it has become largely unmanaged and overgrown. The recent work has restored a sense of openness to the area once more, and the Victorian specimen conifers – Coastal Redwood and Morinda Spruce – planted around its edges can now be seen to their full effect. (Find out more about these historic trees on our Tree Trail). It is hoped that the Clearing will offer different habitats to the main woodland area and that the clearing will add to the biodiversity of the estate. Volunteers also took up the challenge to clear dumped rubbish in the lower area of Penpole Wood behind Mancroft Avenue, making a huge impact on the amenity of the area.
We owe all the volunteers who made this project happen a huge debt of gratitude, and we’re sure that everyone who remembers Jubilee Clearing in its former condition will join us in thanks to The Noise. It was also wonderful to see young people getting so involved in the restoration project and clearly having as much enjoyment from it as the Scouts would once have had.
