Ancient Avenue Repairs

We were delighted to discover the recent planting of four new lime trees on the estate. These have been planted by the Council tree team and replace some of the lost trees on the historic avenue leading to the house.

One of five replacement trees on the north side of the Ancient avenue, just planted this month.  

This avenue was first planted at the turn of the 18th Century by Sir Robert Southwell and his son Edward. The limes are recorded as young trees in two of the many avenues leading from the house in the well-known engraving of the park from about 1710. From then on, they remain a constant feature of the park through history , surviving the de-formalisation of the grounds in the mid-Eighteenth Century. In the last decade several have succumbed to disease.

The new trees, one on the south side of the avenue and three on the north, replicate the historic spacing and repair gaps that have gradually opened up. Along with the new avenue planted by KWAG in 2012, these go a long way to reinstating something of the formality of the original garden layout.  

With the old trunk ground out, a replacement lime tree takes its place next to some of the ancient examples.
Seen in Kip’s 1710 engraving, the sections of the avenue still with us are ringed in red.  

Restoration at the Echo

Since 2022, one corner of the Sir John Vabrugh designed Echo has been held aloft only by means of a nylon strap. This was attached during urgent maintenance work when the dilapidated condition of the cornice was first raised as a concern. At the same time, the brambles and other weeds whose roots were penetrating the mortar joints were cleared off. However, it’s taken a considerable time for the Council conservators to return.

The Echo takes on the appearance of a sentry box with the restorers scaffolding and palisades erected. 

Last month we had the first reports that the long-promised scaffolding was being erected, along with a palisade protecting it from any abuse or vandalism. The whole structure took on a formidable appearance while contractors worked to re-mortar and repair the stonework. At the same time, some of the overhanging trees that were threatening to knock down the decorative urns were also trimmed back.

Hopefully, perhaps even by now, the work will be finished and the building revealed again to the public.

The Echo in 1927. Philip Napier Miles enjoyed a rustic garden style that saw him allow plants to spring up out of the building’s stonework and steps. The two chairs inside are hollowed out from fallen tree trunks! 

Triumphant Spring setting for the historic bridge

October’s Big Bulb Plant at the Iron Bridge has come good with a sensational display this Spring. The heavy work preparing the ground and digging holes through rubble was definitely worth the effort; the visual impact speaks for itself!

A panorama looking down and across the slope towards Shirehampton Road with the bridge on the left. The City boundary marker is now surrounded by flowers. 

Both sides of the Iron Bridge looked phenomenal in the Spring sun during March, though flowers are just going over now.  We hope that everyone who contributed to the bulb plant will have had the chance to go up, take a look and enjoy the display. It certainly seems to have attracted a lot of attention.

John Loudon McAdam’s iron bridge is now set in a sea of gold on the Kingsweston Hill side

This October we hope to give daffodils a rest. The cultivated blooms are not suitable for many parts of the historic estate and we’re keen to diversify into more native species. As part of the Nature Conservation plan being developed by the Council we hope to agree suitable species and locations that will both ornament the estate and improve its appeal for nature.

The northern approach to the bridge on the Kingsweston Hill side. 

More light laurel pruning below the Echo

The issues of invasive cherry laurel are well known; outcompeting native species, leaching toxins into the soil, and contributing to soil erosion, are just three reasons that many hundreds of hours of volunteer work have been devoted to its removal. Whilst it was once maintained as a decorative landscaping plant, it’s now run wild and is having a seriously detrimental impact on the woodland and the soil.

the cherry laurel regrowth long the mid-18th Century pleasure walk 

The last two working parties this year returned to the area on the north-east side of the Echo path, sections of the estate we originally felled laurel in around nine years ago. Whilst much was poisoned by the Council in the wake of our work, the areas closer to Kings Weston house weren’t treated and have more quickly regrown. This was the target of March’s working party.

With a good team of volunteers, we carried on the surgical removal of the laurel whilst leaving the native species that have begun to recolonise the area. Starting from the twin ponds, work progressed downhill throughout the day though, sadly, we didn’t manage to clear as far as the boundary with the house; this was left for a few volunteers to clear away later.

The area behind the two ponds before and after volunteer work. Many native bulbs were planted here in the autumn of 2014, many of which had been hidden. 

In the process of opening the area back up many of the saplings and native bulbs planted in the area have been revealed. In February we found the snowdrops lost beneath the laurel growth, and last month the bluebells and miniature daffodils were rediscovered, now better able to reach the sun! Eventually, when the laurel toxins have eventually leached out of the soil and the forest floor has matured further, it will ensure that rainwater run-off from the slope will be more effectively captured.  

the view from the pleasure walk along the garden edge looking towards the main Echo path and the lawns beyond. 

Gems at Kings Weston

Sir Robert Southwell when President of the Royal Society. 

The Bristol Records Society has recently published its 78th volume, one with some Kings Weston associations. The new publication, edited by Anthony Turner, catalogues the correspondence between William Cole, a gentleman and customs official in Bristol, and Sir Robert Southwell of Kings Weston and his son Edward. The letters exchanged between them largely relate to their mutual interest in natural history and associations with the Royal Society. Sir Robert was elected President of the Society in 1690, a position he was re-elected to five times.
 
There are few insights into Kings Weston, but a short series of letters are particularly fascinating. They describe the discovery of some crystals Cole had discovered on Sir Robert’s estate and presented them to him and his family as a gifts. The “topaz” stones were made up into five rings, one for Sir Robert and Edward, and the remaining three for each of his surviving daughters.  

It’s not clear where the stones were found on the estate, but crystals are not uncommon in the rocks of the Avon Gorge. Known since the Seventeenth Century as “Bristol Diamonds” they became popular as souvenirs. Dug out of iron ore veins, or found in nodules and geodes they were actually quartz crystals. The “topaz” Cole found are likely to be similar stones.

Both the main stone types within the Kings Weston parkland, limestone and Dolomitic Conglomerate, could have produced these gems. KWAG has come across them before now during excavations for steps, or mixed in topsoil, but none appear to have the same clarity encountered by Cole. What became of the Southwell’s rings is, sadly, unknown. 

Quartz crystals of a very flawed quality found during KWAG work in Penpole Woods. Perhaps the Kings Weston topaz stones were finer quality than these.  

The following excerpts are taken from the recent publication and give extra colour and depth to the story:    
 
William Cole to Edward Southwell, 5 May 1694
 

“Honoured & deare Sir
I have forborne to write to you since your last of the 27 March for that I was desirous in my next to make good my promise of sending you some of the Topaz stones of Kings Weston which I have att length and without much difficulty procured and now send you…
 
Now concerning the stones it may not be impertinent to give you a particular account that about 10 or 12 yeares since I procured many of them from Kings Weston and among them all there were not above 5 or 6 which were very good, and these I parted from to gratifie the earnest desires of some particular freinds not keeping anie for myselfe (being a stone I always fancied above others) presuming to have gotten more but never could till your last time being heere and when I had gotten severall hundred of them I caused the Jeweller to examine them and he pict out 22 of them (not finding any more that he thought good) which he carried with him to London to be cutt there but 12 of which found fitt to be cutt and returned the rest to me as defective, of which I chose out the 5 best and biggest to be set in Rings which are now sent by [….)
 
I did as well as I could by conjecture, direct the Jeweller in sizeing the ringes, 1st that for Sir Robert to be made a small size too big for me i.e. no 1. The next No 2 for yourselfe a size bigger then that supposing your finger to be somewhat bigger then your fathers, and N° 3 for Mm H[elena] & M E[lizabeth] neere of the same bignesse and N° 5 the least for M K[atherine]. I presumed the stones would have beene bigger, but he that cutt them assured me that when the topps of those which are crystalline the rough side & both are ground of The Topaz in the midle would be noe bigger soe as to be cleane and pure.
 
These 5 taken out of the aforesaid 12, the remaining 7 are not soe big nor indeed soe good as these. He further assured me that in grinding them he found them harder than the common Topazes, tho not as the Orientall hard Topazes which are neer in value to dyamonds, which are allsoe called yellow dyamonds. The foile under the stones is the common looking glasse foile. It hath been my designe some years past to procure some of theise stones to the end they may be worn not onely, rudely cut enough as they are, but as such found in S’ Roberts owne mannor. If these several tokens of gratitude find acceptance with the same [illegible interlined word replacing”

An example of Bristol Diamonds from the Gorge area, now in the M-Shed museum 



Sir Robert Southwell to William Cole, London 2 July 1694

“Wee lately had the effects of your favour in five Rings you told us indeed of Topazes of our own Growth but I little thought you would have improved them as you have done. But you have at the same time improved our value of Kings Weston. for we newe not before we were so rich.
Mr Woodward a great Judge of these things admires them very much, and hath obleiged me to furnish his collection with 2 or 3 Rust ones when I gett downe.”

 

William Cole to Edward Southwell, 23 aug 1694

“Besides these thinges I was requested by him in his letter & […] to imploy the stone digger to find some of the rough topaz stones for Mr Woodward which I proposed to doe this weeke, but before that spoken with him he came this morning to offer some other sorts of stones to me; and told me that he was yesterday att Kings Weston digging in Sir Robert’s land and forbidden by one of his servants. I examined him what answer he made him, and he told me that he said I had procured leave for him from Sir Robert but I never spake with him nor sent to him since I went into Wilts in May last. He offers to ingage not dig in any place to the damage of the Land and to suffer punishment if he doth not levell the holes where he shall dig for stones which he sayth lye neere the surface if your father think fitt that he shew the places where he supposeth to find them to one of his servants that he may be first satisfied that it may be don without damage to the land, he hath one large peec of a hollow rock of about half hundred within which are found good stones which I presume will be pleasing to Mr Woodward tho not of the right Topaz colour which if your father please to accept it I shall ingage the stone digger to present to your father being found in the same Mannour and to search for such as are of the true colour.”

the Kings Weston estate in about 1710. It’s not known where in the grounds the crystals were discovered. 


War Memorial’ photo’s reservoir reveal 

The War Memorial after the inauguration crowds had receded on 4th September 1921. 

A new photo has come to us that will be of interest to many of you. The unveiling of Shirehampton’s War Memorial was held on Sunday 4th September 1921. Designed in the manner of a medieval wayside cross, it was given a dignified position at the top of Park Hill. The site at the corner of Shirehampton Road and Penpole Lane was once more prominent than it is today, and on the edge of the landscaped parkland nestled between long avenues of trees.

The land had been donated by Kings Weston’s owner, Philip Napier Miles, who also chaired the committee tasked with the memorial’s erection. It was his estate architect, Ernest Newton, who had been given the task of designing a fitting memorial to carry the 57 names of local men lost in the war.

The newly discovered photo records the scene of the unveiling from the Shirehampton Park side of the road, the cross surrounded by sun-bathed  spectators keen to mark their respects. Ropes that may have released some sort of curtain still hang from the crosshead. It’s also a tantalising glimpse of the timber building set up over the new reservoir built by the Bristol Water Co.


A bill was set before parliament in June 1920 to enable the company to build several new works, including a new reservoir to serve the growing Bristol suburbs of Shirehampton and Avonmouth. As originally planned, this was to be in a field west of the cricket club, but at some point the site changed to a spot on the north side of Penpole Lane. Sadly, this required part of the landscaped grounds to be compulsorily purchased for the deep tank and the incongruous-looking large sheds protecting the water from contamination. The Bill was passed in May 1921, so it looks as though work was quick to start, or had already begun before the new facility was photographed in September that year.  It’s not clear what Napier Miles thought of this intrusion into the landscape, but challenging a Government Bill would have been a financially challenging prospect.

The reservoir survives today, emptied, and converted as the Karakal works, albeit now with a steel shed covering. Strange as it seems, the reservoir is now over a century old!

The newly discovered view with the twin roofs of the newly-built reservoir seen beyond the crowds. The War Memorial stands proud in the centre. 

Keeping up appearances near the Echo

It’s always lovely to meet new volunteers, and we welcome those who turned up last month to lend a hand with keeping on top of the cherry laurel regrowth close to the Echo. It’s been eleven years since we began cutting this invasive shrub away in this area. Thanks to the Council following-through with poisoning of the stumps the growth has been seriously retarded, but eleven years is still a long time to go without any re-cutting.

Looking downhill towards Kings Weston house, an area first cleared in 2014. 

Some areas had started to become quite overgrown with laurel, and there was a need for care in cutting them out. Dozens of saplings, planted by KWAG not long after we cleared, survive and have begun to thrive. It was important that none were accidentally lopped off in the process!

The target was to clear everything between the Echo and the two ponds. Most of this was achieved, but we fell slightly short for want of volunteers to help in the afternoon. Nevertheless, only small areas immediately around the pond remain to be done this month.

Looking up the slope with The Echo revealed in the distance after laurel clearance work. 

One unforeseen bonus of our work has been the revealing of some of the native bulbs planted in the area as part of one of our early big Bulb Plants. Groups of Snowdrops and native daffodils were discovered cowering under the cherry laurel and bramble, hopefully now more able to survive.

Another task performed on the day was the pushing back of the cherry laurel margins alongside the boundary wall and road. We’re keen not to lose all of these and expose walkers to the traffic, but there was a good deal to cut that had begun to grow back across the path again. Unfortunately, we have an incomplete set of before-and-after photos, but we’re returning this weekend, so we’ll provide more of an update next month. 

The view looking back towards the house looking down the pleasure walk leading behind the woods from the Echo. 

An unusual token of love

The Kings Weston estate was extensive, with landholdings well beyond the confines of the parkland surrounding the house. Some of this land was framed directly by the estate from the Home Farm, but hundreds of acres of it were separated into farms rented from the estate. Whilst many of these pre-existing the arrival of the Southwell’s at the house in 1675, successive family members sought to improve the land and build substantial farm premises to support their tenant farmers

Campbell Farm, one of numerous estate farms, seen in sales particulars from 1937. Today, Longcross would pass accross the pasture in front. 

The third Edward Southwell, the 20th baron de Clifford, (1738-1777) appears to have had a particularly improving impact on his estates. He came into his inheritance at an early age and the estate was placed in the hands of trustees while he was in his minority. He returned from a Grand Tour of Europe to take control of Kings Weston in 1762, immediately turning his attention to refurbishing the house and rebuilding the out-buildings for his new wife, Sophia, but appears also to have focussed investment on rebuilding a number of his agricultural holdings.

A pastel portrait of Sophia “Sophie” Southwell (Nee Campbell) and her children, circa 1775


Most of the farms were spread out below Kings Weston house on the Severn plain, running up to the estuary banks. Centuries of drainage works and flood defences had created fertile fields which were packaged into farms of varying size. Southwell built, and rebuilt the majority of these on modern models, both farmhouses and yards. Many buildings from this period survive today, but perhaps the best preserved is Campbell Farm in Lawrence Weston. It was originally the lowermost collection of buildings that constituted Kings Weston as a hamlet, strung out down the lane before the open agricultural land commenced.

 Buildings of Campbell Farm today

All of the farms were given family names related to Southwell’s ancestors, such as Ardglass and Katherine farms after his mother and her line. In an unlikely romantic gesture, Campbell Farm was named after his wife’s family name. It was perhaps the finest of the farms on the Kings Weston estate, more extensive even than the Home Farm and with an impressive series of barns, byres, and out buildings rebuilt in the 1760s.

Detail of a plan of Kings Weston estate showing the  location of Campbell Farm in relation to the rest of Kings Weston. 

The farm remained intact even after sale in 1937 following the death of the last private owner of Kings Weston house, Philip Napier Miles, but it was not to last. After WWII much of the land was requisitioned by the city Council for the building of Lawrence Weston Estate. Many of the other cottages and buildings of Kings Weston hamlet were demolished, but Campbell Farm was spared. Miscategorised by Historic England when it was Listed as “Mid-Nineteenth Century”, its importance has been somewhat overlooked.  Now sandwiched between the post-war housing and the hinterland of motorways and slip-roads that border it to the north, the buildings survive, converted to homes and small businesses, but still with some of the charm of the Georgian era.     

A fine building portrait of the main farmhouse, dating to the 18th Century, but with Victorian modifications. It survives today largely unchanged from this 1937 photo.  

The smallest Listed building with a bigger history 

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 18th Century milestone on Historic England’s register. So why is it there in the middle of the park?
 

This cast iron plaque and milestone constitute the smallest Listed building on the Kings Weston estate. 

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.

An annotated aerial view of the park with, highlighted, the line of the first road taken on by the Turnpike Trust to better connect Bristol with Shirehampton and the Avon ferry across to Pill. 


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 turnpike road distinguished running through the park on Donne’s map of 1769

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 18th 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.  

Shirehampton Lodge looking towards the park in 1788, painted by Hieronymus Grimm. The gates straddle the turnpike road but were used only to demark the extents of the private estate.
The scene looking in the opposite direction in around 1905. The park gates survived, a reminder that, although the road was now a public highway, that it traversed the private parkland. They were eventually removed in WWI when they were found to inhibit the movement of troops and vehicles to and from Avonmouth Docks.  

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 plan submitted with the 1819 Act of Parliament with the pink section of road near Kingsweston Inn being that proposed to add to the  rest of the network shown in yellow.

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?

Listed lodge comes on the market

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 19th 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.

Henbury Lodge in 1846 showing the original appearance with a parapet roof and central Venetian centrepiece between the projecting end bays. 

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.

The lodge seen on Google street-view in 2009, before some of the render was stripped. It’s unclear when the modern porch appeared.  

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

An aerial view of Henbury Lodge in its current condition.