Tag Archives: Georgian

Kings Weston as political powerhouse 

Leave a reply

Both notable families of Kings Weston, the Southwell’s in the eighteenth Century  and the Miles’s in the Nineteenth, were heavily involved in politics. As might be expected from any wealthy landholder, they were keen to protect their own interests as much as serve in the country’s interests. It’s not surprising therefore, to find that five owners of the estate would serve in the House of Commons, and two in the House of Lords.

Members of the Southwell family were also involved in court life and as part of Government outside of their constituency responsibilities. What’s perhaps odd to us today is that many communities they were elected to represent were very remote from their home.

Edward Southwell II of Kings Weston (1739-1754), MP for Bristol  1739-1754

Sir Robert Southwell retired to Kings Weston from Court life in London in 1679, relinquishing his Government roles and choosing not to stand again for elected as MP for Penryn in Cornwall where he’d served for six years. After William III took the throne he returned to government and was elected for Lostwithiel in 1685.  

In 1702 his Son, Edward (1671-1730) was put forward as a candidate at Rye. The election went against him, but after a legal hearing in the elections committee the vote was overturned in his favour because of ‘illegal’ interference in the election. Again, Rye was very far from the Southwell’s interests and was probably what we’d consider a safe seat. Similar might be said for later elections as MP for Tregony in 1713, where he served a matter of months before a General Election, before finding favour in Preston.  

As the 18th century progressed, power gradually transferred from the monarch to the House of Commons. Politics came more polarised, voters expected better representation, and political parties were a growing force. The importance of local people representing local interests also increased. Edwad Southwell II (1739-1754) was the first of his family to represent a local constituency.

When Edward was 33, one of the two MPs for Bristol, Thomas Coster, was reported in ill health and subsequently died. Even before the death was announced, Edward had already determined t throw his lot in and seek election to the vacant seat.

We’re fortunate to have a journal he kept, detailing the various machinations in the lead-up to the election in December. This gives a fascinating insight into the process and how Edward built alliances to gain support.

At the start of October, he begins:

“I had private acts and many affairs to settle to my steward Francis Benning at Kingsweston which inclined me to undertake the journey from London, but on the news he sent me of Mr Coster’s (The member of parliament)  desperate state of health, I determined upon the journey after consulting my wife at how I should act in case of being invited to stand at the election, who freely bid me neither regard her nor her condition (she being then 6 months gone with child) nor my son, whereover my honour or credit or the service of my Country required my absence of stay. “

Kings Weston house in 1746, during which time Edward Southwell II was MP for the city. 

On arrival in Bristol 6th October he headed directly to the Tolsey on Corn Street where the magistrates of the city sat and much business where:

“Mr Berkeley stand me and I promised him and Mr Chester my Interest for the County which being so publick was much taken notice of. NB. Mr Coster was buried the night before at the Cathedral abd every bell in the City tolled for him from morning till night.”

He was disappointed to find that there was initially a lukewarm response to his interest, his closeness to Government and court life being held in some suspicion:

“Upon finding the name of a courtier was so obnoxious, I cooled much in my ambition of standing, I considered I was the King’s Servant, I had ever owed and paid him a personal duty and had ever gone to his court, and that I had my own principles and character to maintain as well as my duty to my country, and determined I would never yield up my respect to the King”

A handbill printed for Southwell’s supporters to circulate around the city. 

This might not have been an attractive attitude for the former supporters of Mr Coster, who were clearly looking for a more liberal representative in line with Whig politics. The Whig’s opposed absolute monarchy, championed parliamentary power, and individual liberty. He was forced into a position of defending his independence in order to find favour with them. Edward wrote,

“that if Mr Coster’s friends set up a man in my station, the magistrates could be able to make no opposition and that the party would take a moderate man, and were not as violent as I imagined. I told him I ever had and ever would pay a personal duty and respect to his Magesty and his Royal Family, that my place of Secretary of State for Ireland was for life and worth little more that 200 guineas per annum, and that I had refused applying for my father’s additional sallery of £300 pounds because I never would accept aan pension, but I would live independent.”

Mr Coster’s friends came round to the prospect of a gentleman of status representing them, declaring him their candidate albeit cautiously.

By November, election fever had taken over the City and Southwell found himself campaigning against Henry Coombe. Naturally, every opportunity was taken by candidates to influence voters and their supporters. Handbills and pamphlets were common, usually from alleged anonymous advocates of the candidates, particularly if they were more vicious in nature.

The punch bowl made at Brislington pottery  in 1739, probably used to curry favour and influence voters. 

The house at Kings Weston came into its own at these times, offering the perfect showcase of the Southwell’s taste wealth, and influence, where voters could be entertained on a lavish scale. The Gloucester Journal reported “The Honourable Mr Southwell has kept open house at Shirehampton ever since he has declared. There are constantly employed a baker, a butcher, and two brewers to provide for the reception of all comers and goers”

Another testament to the interest the election created is a punch bowl now in Bristol’s Museum and Art Gallery. It was commissioned from the Brislington pottery, famed for their tin-glazed ‘delft’ wares, and would have been recognisable as an expensive item at the time. Decorated in rich colours in the Chinese style of the outside, it’s only when the guests would have drained most of the contents they would discover the slogan “Southwell for ever” and the election date inside the bowl. Perhaps once they’d drunk so much, they might have been more susceptible to the political message held within.

Inside the punch bowl, the political motivation behind its manufacture becomes clear

He was declared winner on 12th December, 2651 votes to Combe’s 2203. His journal, now held in Bristol Archives, then transforms from a record of the campaign to a catalogue of the petitions and constituency work that were the inevitable outcome of political position.

Southwell remained true to his promise of independence, showing no consistency in supporting either Whig or Tory, Administration or Opposition, positions. Although perhaps true to the wishes and interests of Bristol, Southwell’s unreliability attracted few friends in the House. The 2nd Lord Egmont, related to Southwell by marriage, wrote dismissively of his kinsman:

“Southwell is a weak man. Has an affectation of being supposed to act according to his conscience, which directs him to vote one day for a proposition in a committee, and the very reverse the next day and in the House. They think him an honest man at Bristol but they have no opinion of his understanding and I believe if occasion were, he might be easily changed—But if not he will be as often for us as against us!”  

Despite frustrating other politicians, Southwell maintained support from Bristol’s voters, representing the city until 1754, when, due to ill health, he chose not to stand. He died the following year.

It would be the same 2nd Lord Egmont who’d criticised him who would support Edwards son, Edward II (1738-1776) for election to Bridgewater in 1761. Seeing an opportunity to represent his native Gloucestershire, he declared as candidate two years later. He represented the county for thirteen years before being elevated to the House of Lords in April 1776 and vacating the seat.  

Glimpses of Kings Weston’s artistic wealth on display

Leave a reply

A recent visit to Bristol Museum and Art Gallery came with something of a surprise. Hanging on the wall of the British and European Art: The Age of Enlightenment and the Birth of Romanticism gallery is a pair of paintings we recognised immediately as being from Kings Weston!

Venice, the Molo by Canaletto, now at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery 

The paintings are by none other than Canaletto, and it’s after them that the Canaletto Room in Kings Weston house was named. The two paintings were auctioned in 2002 from the collection of Southwell family portraits still in the ownership of the family trust. The sale paid for the expensive restoration of the rest of the collection, but the two Canaletto’s went into private hands. They are now hanging in the museum on a five-year loan from a private collection.

The two paintings were originally bought for Kings Weston by Edward Southwell II. At 21 the young Southwell had been dispatched to the Continent on his grand tour, returning home in August 1726. It appears that it was only in the following year that Southwell  purchased the first two paintings through Owen Mc Sweeney (or Swiny). Mc Sweeny had become resident in the Italian city in 1721, becoming agent for several artists and selling his works to English gentlemen on the Grand Tour. It may be that Southwell placed orders for the paintings when he was in Venice in early summer 1726, for them to be sent to him the following year.  

Venice, Piazza San Marco by Canaletto, now at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery 

The latter wrote to the Duke of Richmond in 1727: “The pieces which Mr. Southwell has, (of Canals painting) were done for me, and they cost me 70 sequeens. The fellow is whimsical and vary’s his prices every day: and he that has a  mind to have any of his work, must not seem to be too fond of it, for he’ll be ye worse treated for it, both in the price and in the painting too. He has more work than he can doe, in any reasonable time, and well: but by the assistance of a particular friend of his, I get once in two months a piece sketch’d out and a little time after finished, by force of bribery. l send yr Grace by Captain Robinson [ … ] who sails from hence tomorrow, Two of the Finest pieces, I think he ever painted and of the same size with Mr. Southwell’ s little ones (which is a size he excels in)”.

It’s worth noting that Mc Sweeney was an Irishman and Southwell maintained strong links with his ancestral homeland, shortly to become Secretary of State to that Kingdom in succession after his father. The pair may have connected in Venice over a patriotic bond.

Edward Southwell II, 1705-1755, who commissioned Canaletto’s paintings. 

Edward Southwell became one of the earliest gentlemen to boast Canaletto’s amongst their collections, at the forefront of a trend that would eventually see the artist coming to England to satisfy demand for his paintings.
 
By 1777 there were four paintings by Canaletto hanging at Kings Weston. Is it possible that Southwell had returned from Venice with a pair in 1726, the two commissioned through Mc Sweeney adding to the collection?
 
The four views of Venice were hung together in the Dressing Room of Lady de Clifford, a large first floor reception room with a bay window overlooking the Severn. Here, most of the family’s best and most intimate paintings were to be found, those intended to be seen by the family’s closest friends and most important guests. They were clearly held in high regard.
 
When the last in the line of Southwells, the 21st Baron de Clifford, died and his property was sold in a series of London Auctions, the paintings were described and “St Mark’s Quay” and “St Mark’s Place – the companion”. The original attribution to Canaletto was later amended in the catalogue to name Guardi, another Venetian artist, as their creator. They sold for £31 and £25 respectively, possibly bought back by family members. But what of the other two recorded in the house a generation before?
 
In a year when a number of other paintings that once hung at Kings Weston have gone to auction, it’s gratifying to find two such important paintings being shared with the public so generously.

The lily pond in past times 

Leave a reply

Following our focus on the Lily Pond, we were delighted to have some terrific photographs of it in happier times shared with us. Ken Osborne kindly directed us to these photos in his collection that show the pond in the 1950s.

In one, children take advantage of the open access at the west end to go pond dipping under the care of a couple of adults resting on the parapet wall; it certainly seems to have been a popular activity for a sunny afternoon. A notice attached to the lodge warns “action will be taken against any person found fishing or throwing litter in the pond”. We imagine the children will have got permission for their little ‘fishing’ even

A panorama of photos stitched together to show the lilypond in the 1950s. 
One of the surviving fruit trees, still with it’s fan-shaped branches, but now less formally trained. 

We’ve managed to splice a few of these into a long panorama showing the view from Napier Miles Road, and the fruit trees still trained across the back walls in glorious fan patterns. Some of these trees still grow today, a delicious couple of pear trees have become unruly, but still fruit in abundance.

The gardens around the pond were noted for the abundance of their crop, and the excellent conditions they offered for even delicate fruit. An article in The Garden magazine in July 1900 remarks on the hardiness of fig trees here. Again, some of these survive in the grounds, and were noted then for “individual fruits attaining to a very large size and ripening perfectly”. The author writes that “there are few gardens in which figs thrive and continue productive over so many years” and that they were “enviable to visitors whose ambition in fig culture cannot be satisfied to anything like the extent which obtain here under the most simple rules of culture”.

A couple of young ladies pause on the parapet wall of the pond for a chat, some time in the 1950s.  


Working Party update – Urgent work at the lily pond

Leave a reply

There were some herculean efforts put in last month from a crowd of volunteers, over a dozen, and we managed to make serious restoration progress on the historic lily pond on Napier Miles Road. There were two objectives the work; firstly, the cutting-down or rooting-up of trees and vegetation that has grown to suffocate the pond, and to enable a clearer survey of the condition of the pond walls and bottom.
 
Even after a long dry Summer, it was a surprise to find no open water at all in the pond tank! The vegetation has acted to soak up much more water than would be usual, and the ground was relatively firm across the whole area.

Volunteers rake-up the cut rubbish in an effort to clear the historic lily pond. 

The target to cut and remove the vegetation was only just met by the end of the day, the hot conditions meaning volunteers tired quickly despite the great turnout. The waste was lifted to the pond edges and stacked in existing piles of debris up and away from the water line. Sadly, there was little sign of any of the 49 individual native pond species recorded here in 2012 as part of our Bioblitz. There were two types of reeds, sporadic water lily plants, some froglets, and an invasion of sallow trees, but nothing that indicates a thriving environment.

Before and after work focussed on reversing the decline of the Georgian pond.
A volunteer inspects the trial hole dug through the decaying vegetation to find the pond base. 

Initial review showed the original hydraulic lining applied to the pond walls has dried and begun disintegrating, allowing water to leak away around the edges. We dug a small trial hole to establish the depth and condition of the lining of the pond. Digging down through an astonishing 18 inches of black sloppy rotting organic material, we encountered the original clay bottom of the pond.

In the area inspected, this looked to be in a decent wet condition, but where areas dry out in the summer, any cracked clay base or root damage will also be letting the water leak away. The hole we dug filled with water during the afternoon, showing that even though it looks like a field right now, the water is still close to the surface.

A quick calculation suggests there are around 350 cubic metres of mud needing clearing out to start restoration of the pond lining. This could equate to about 340 tons of black gunk that need removing from the pond!

We’re grateful too for the incredible positive reaction to this work, and the kind words of support we’ve received; more than for any other project we’ve undertaken on the estate!

The view from the road before and after restoration work
The dense monoculture of reeds is cut out to slow the decline in the pond’s condition. 





 

Bristol Planners volunteer at the lilypond   

Leave a reply
KWAG brings volunteers up to speed on the tasks for the day.

The estate and KWAG was fortunate to host a team-building event by officers of Bristol City Council Development Management team on Wednesday 25th October. We’d managed to arrange with Kingsweston School for a group of 25 volunteers to access the area of the Georgian walled gardens around the lily pond on Napier Miles Road as the latest in our campaign to stem the tide of neglect and restore the much-loved and historic site.

The work overseen by KWAG focussed on the three strips of garden surrounding the pond, the removal of the dead box hedging, digging-up of brambles, and the felling of self-seeded saplings and shrubs. The formal box hedges succumbed last year to an onslaught of box moth caterpillar that ravaged Bristol. Here it left just a single bush alive, and that just barely. The brambles and saplings have taken advantage of the lack of maintenance since the school returned the pond area to Council Property department.

The south walk along the pond before and after the day’s events.

We were lucky enough to take advantage of the west lodge at the pond for bag storage as the team were briefed on the tasks for the day and health and safety. It was impressive, the way that the volunteers engaged with the work and threw themselves into it. Despite an unpromising weather forecast, the rain held off until the dying minutes of the event before 4pm and we even enjoyed some sun.

Tired Council volunteers pose at the end of the day outside the lodge.

We were lucky to have one of the city ecologists and tree officers as part of the team who were able to advise us on the work. The ecologist was particularly in demand when digging disturbed dozens of Common Newts and other amphibians settling down amongst the roots. These were relocated to safe areas around the pond.  

Huge inroads were made on clearance, massive progress in restoring the area. Whilst the job wasn’t completed in its entirely, the magnitude of the job was enormous and what was achieved was epic in scale. We are extremely grateful to all the Council officers who turned out for the event and made such an impact. Despite the wet finish everyone enjoyed the event and stuck with it until the very end. The space that’s been revealed is now a blank canvas to re-plan the gardens, and buys precious time for KWAG to plan a viable new future. Thanks too to Kingsweston School for hosting us, and parks and other departments of the Council for enabling the event.

Similar views of the west side of  the lilypond in 1898, and before and after recent volunteer work. The pond edge is again discernible and brambles threatening the lodge have been cut. 

…As a postscript, KWAG returned to make some investigations of the pond and have managed to clear some of the saplings alongside the road so visitors can glimpse progress on the garden areas beyond.

Some clearance at the lilypond has allowed us to find the waterline and judge the extent of the tree growth. 

Another Successful heritage open day

Leave a reply
the dining room  with crowds enjoying the day. (Photo, Bob Pitchford) 

This year’s September open day must rank amongst one of the best in recent years. With fine weather and a sense of occasion the day attracted just shy of 600 visitors between opening at 10am and half-four. Five busy tours were hosted by KWAG throughout the day taking visitors through each of the state rooms on the ground floor including the former Drawing Room where our usual exhibition was held. Noticeably, the sun encouraged may people to explore more of the estate, with a constant stream of people seen walking up the path to The Echo and back.

This year the exhibition was augmented by a new display cabinet where we were able to show some of the smaller artefacts we’ve not previously been able to. As with the last couple of years, we were selling the KWAG Christmas cards to help support our work around the estate. Perhaps because of the fine weather or new postal costs these weren’t as popular as previous occasions. However, the day attracted around £500 in cash and digital donations; this will help go towards offsetting the cost of the Big Bulb plant to be held this month.

The Drawing Room, now the Oak Room, hosts KWAG’s exhibition in the middle of a house tour. (Photo Bob Pitchford) 

As usual, huge thanks must go to KWAG volunteers who gifted their time staffing the event, greeting visitors, and manning the exhibition. Our thanks also go the team at Kings Weston house for hosting the event and allowing KWAG to play such a large part in showcasing it.

The History of Kings Weston’s grandest room. 

Leave a reply

Ahead of Heritage Open Days, and to accompany our history of the stair hall last year, here’s a short history of the mighty room variously known as the Picture Gallery or Hall, but perhaps more properly called the Saloon. It’s always been intended as the most impressive of the rooms in the house, where important guests could enter and find themselves in a space designed to impose itself on the visitor through its great scale. Despite many changes in appearance from the original design by Sir John Vanbrugh, even today the hall has that power.

An original plan for Kings Weston house with annotations. 

Today, what we see on entering by way of the front door is a comprehensive redecoration of the 1760s. As designed in 1712 for owner Edward Southwell, the walls were bare Penpole stone, with arches, alcoves, arcades, and other classical architectural detailing echoing that of the main facade. Visitors entering through the front door would have been greeted with two fireplaces before them, an expression of both hospitality and, in being able to afford fuel to keep both burning, wealth. Between them was a single arched door leading into the stair hall beyond, attention to which would have been drawn through glimpsed views through open arcades and a gallery at first floor level. Around the rest of the room were arched doorways and semi-circular alcoves, perhaps for the display of statues.

A Computer generated view of the Saloon at Kings Weston as originally designed in 1712. 

A dramatic interplay of spaces was a familiar feature in Vanbrugh’s repertoire. The Hall at Blenheim Palace is the most ambitious of these theatrical spaces, but similar arrangements at Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire (design circa 1715), and Seaton Deleval, Northumberland (1718) repeated themes developed at Kings Weston. Even in its fire-damaged state, the entrance hall at Seaton Deleval gives the strongest idea of how Kings Weston’s Saloon might have looked when it was first occupied in 1716. The open arcades and high level galleries allow the visitor to experience the spaces from a variety of angles, passing from grand volumes into more intimate passages, from light airy spaces to dark and back again. Vanbrugh intentionally excited visitors by sculpting these contrasting and multi-layered spaces. He was ahead of his time in creating an experiential architecture, designed to provoke an emotional response from just air and stone.

The hall at Seaton Deleval with similar features to Kings Weston. (Jon Dalrymple)


Although architecturally impressive and grand in scale, the Saloon can hardly have been a practical or comfortable room to use. The stone walls would have been cold, and the open arcades would have promoted drafts to draw through the house.  In 1769, by the time the Saloon was described in “A six week tour thru the southern counties of England and Wales” as “the only tolerable room, and that rendered totally useless, by a vast echo” its shortcomings had been addressed with new designs.

Cut-away of Sir John Vanbrugh’s original design for the Saloon and Stair Hall. 

Edward Southwell’s Grandson, the third Edward Southwell, returned from his Grand Tour of Europe in 1762, a 24-year old with grand plans for his inheritance. Employing the architect Robert Mylne who, it is thought, he met in Rome, he set about modernising Kings Weston. Mylne was engaged in April the following year, but it wasn’t until four years into the project that work on the Saloon began. In November 1767 Mylne started sending Southwell a series of drawings for the room. General elevations of the walls, cornice details, fireplace, and “frames of the pictures at large”. Unlike a tradditional gallery the paintings were all integrated into their architectural setting rather than hanging in tradditional gilt frames; It’s this that ensured their survival in the house to today.  

the Saloon with its decorative plasterwork framing the Southwell family portraits.

The carved stone architectural details were chiselled away and the room lined with timber studs and lath and plaster to improve both sound and warmth. The work in the Saloon was intended not just to improve its performance, but to display the large collection of family portraits as the lineage of a great family. The intention was to use each of the three blank walls to display the portraits of a particularly auspicious branch of the family. The Southwell’s themselves took the north wall, Edward’s mother’s side, the Watsons, took the wall opposite, but the wall confronting the arriving visitor was reserved for the most notable family: the Cromwells.
 
The ceiling appears to have been retained, only slightly altered from the original but receiving extravagant swags of flowers in plasterwork, all wrought by the famous Bristol workshop of Thomas Stocking. Mylne’s “drawing for a flower and urn in ceiling of saloon” apparently didn’t find favour. The redesigned Saloon was finished in 1768, with Mylne’s last correspondence on it being “patterns of water straw colours for the saloon”, presumably a yellow/stone colour paint for the walls.

Detail of the ornate plasterwork flowers and rose executed by Thomas Stocking in 1767-8

Research updates

Leave a reply

Kings Weston has been something of a focus for academic research just recently. A team from Trinity College Dublin recently visited Bristol with a research project looking at stone in historic buildings. Whilst their main area of interest was the Exchange in the city centre, they also visited Kings Weston as part of their enquiries. We were able to help in directing them to various written sources that pinpointed where the masonry for the house was being obtained from, either the park itself or further afield. They were also helpful in providing information on the sourcing of various stones from Ireland that were used ornamentally in the building.
 
The National Trust have also been in contact and found our research into the rooftop chimney arcades helpful in understanding how the rooftop areas of Seaton Delaval Hall were designed and used. This Northumberland mansion was also the product of architect Sir John Vanbrugh’s imagination, and the Trust are keen to find ways for visitors to best appreciate them. Our help included providing evidence that the arcade at Kings Weston was designed as a viewing platform, and directing them to Vanbrugh’s original letters in which he “would fain to have that part rightly hit off” and answer to what he hoped to achieve architecturally.  

The chimneys of Kings Weston house appearing above the landscape in 1789.  

Another exciting development has been the announcement that the Sir John Soane museum in London will be holding an exhibition on Vanbrugh in February 2026 to coincide with the tercentenary of his death. Author and curator Charles Saumarez Smith visited the estate last year and is engaged in researching Vanbrugh and his involvement in the rebuilding with the hope to publish a new biography to coincide with this commemorative year. We were glad to been able to accompany him on his visit and share a lot of our research to support this endeavour. Some time to wait yet, but this is definitely something to look forward to!  

Iron Bridge Returns!

Leave a reply

Finally!! A major milestone in the iron bridge restoration was reached at the end of last month, with the return of the historic structure, albeit 1.1 metres higher. Contractors started work early in the morning of the 30th May, bringing in a crane, the bridge strapped to a flat-loader, and closing the footpaths nearby for safety. A group of campaigners and visitors gathered at the west abutment to watch proceedings.

With spectators beyond, contractors watch as the first half of the freshly restored and painted bridge is craned back into place.
The east half of the bridge returns to meet its partner half way. 

The bridge looks resplendent in its new livery of dark green paint, a colour picked to match the original colouring found beneath old paint layers. Contractors from Dorothea Restoration and Griffiths were on hand to make sure that the components would fit back together in their new position; not an easy task with the bearing stones having to be raised and reset at their new level.

The first section, the west end, was gradually lowered into place, and proved the more troublesome of the parts. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing and cutting of the stonework it was eventually seated in position. The east end then followed, then the central plate that fastened the two ends of the bridge together. After some careful adjustment the whole structure was back in place and true.

Work will carry on now, touching up the new paintwork, erecting the steps either end, and fitting the handrails and railings to them. The road closure has been extended until the 15th to allow some of this work to be done, and the final completion is supposed to be the first week in July. Everyone is looking forward to being able to celebrate the reopening!   

T
he two halves back in place, awaiting the central joining connection.  

Reconstructing the Walled Gardens 

Leave a reply

With a renewed focus on the area, it’s worth looking again at the history of the View Garden, once referred to as “the gem of the whole garden”, and lilypond to understand their significance. There’s enough map evidence provided by two important estate surveys of 1720 and 1772 to appreciate the colossal scale of the works undertaken from 1763 to transform the area into the walled garden and stable complex that survives today as a series of Grade II-Star listed buildings split across Napier Mile Road. To help understanding and appreciation we’ve created a short series of sketch views of the area at key moments in their development. Each image has a numbered key with the individual points described below…   

1720

Halett’s estate plan of 1720 is an important record of Kings Weston just as the mansion had been completed, and before new garden works were begun. Although broadly accurate it provides scant information on the appearance and use of the area east of the main house. A later engraving gives a bit of detail, but the reconstruction here can only be described as speculative despite being based on these sources. Our reconstruction depicts an agricultural landscape with fields, orchards, and gardens separated be dry stone walls and hedges, with a few scattered traditional vernacular styled buildings. One of these was perhaps the source of a carved window stone, later built into the glasshouse wall in the 1770s.

1. The road entrance to Kings Weston house approaches from the east as it does today. The present gatehouse and wall are Victorian and of 1903, and it’s not clear what the gates would have looked like at this time.

2. The present Napier Miles Road is a rural track leading from Kings Weston House to Henbury, and the parish church there.

3. Kings Weston Lane is another agricultural track, leading to a few scattered cottages and farms. The lane passes through an ancient hollow-way where centuries of water have washed off the hill and created a gully. Several gullies like this are distributed along the escarpment edge.

4. A number of houses occupy plots of land to the east of Kings Weston house. Most will have been for labourers tied to the estate. This house was on a roughly east-west alignment, and possibly reused the manor’s medieval chapel that would have fallen out of use at the Reformation. Another medieval chapel survived as a cottage in nearby Lawrence Weston until the mid 20th century.

5. A larger house stands above Kings Weston Lane, uncomfortably built into the steeply sloping land that descends towards the north. From its size it’s likely to be a higher status house than those around it. Could it have been an earlier site of the manor, before the current site was established in the Tudor period? A fragment of stone salvaged from the glasshouse wall was recorded by us in 2016.

6. A smaller building in a small plot in this location may have been a barn or other agricultural structure.

7. Shown on the 1720 plan is a large natural pond to the south of the lane to Henbury. This ill have provided a useful resource for the farms, and likely produced ice in the winter for the earlier ice house behind the mansion.

1772

Isaac Taylor’s comprehensive estate survey was undertaken between 1771 and 1772 and includes a number of radical changes east of the house, a striking transformation from rural backwater to thriving estate hub. There are, in fact, two maps of the area drawn by Taylor, each showing slightly different features, perhaps finished at slightly different times. Both show how the old houses and boundaries were largely erased. From 1763 onwards the architect Robert Mylne enacted the third Edward Southwell’s ambition to clear away all the old stables and service buildings from beside Kings Weston house and extend the landscaped parkland to fill their space. Together, architect and client instead created a new set of buildings set in a series of rectangular walled compartments on a grid plan, providing an ambitious integrated design accommodating key estate functions, various gardens, glasshouses, and an impressive carriage house and stables complex. This was all to serve the main house with produce and flowers and service the estate’s transport needs.

8. The lane to Henbury has been realigned to become a broad straight road with grassy verges either side. The new road is designed to have a visual impact when viewed from the gates to Kings Weston house from the west.

9. The natural pond is formalised into a square pond which could be stocked with fish for the kitchen as well as providing water for the gardens and stables. Ice would be collected here in the winter for storage in the icehouse. Ramps and a platform below water level are designed to wet carriage wheels to prevent them from shrinking in hot weather and losing their metal rims.

10. The centrepiece of the new complex is the grand and formal carriage houses, with stables in the wings beyond the archway.

11. Matching the stable block in style are two lodges built framing the pond; One provides a gardener’s cottage and the other a seed house.

12. Paddocks for horses are probably intended for the north-eastern quarter of the complex.

13. Set in its own compartment and angled to maximise exposure to the sun, the glasshouse at Kings Weston and was one of the largest in the country was built in about 1771. A tall masonry wall at the back incorporated a hidden hot air heating system powered by a furnace at the back. The glasshouse quickly became a focus for Sophie Southwell’s interest in horticulture and where she nurtured her interest in growing exotic plants and flowers. It became a much-remarked feature of the estate during the 18th Century.

14. Produce gardens were kept to the southern compartments behind the pond and this walled area. This area with better access to Kings Weston house was a flower garden, laid out on a broadly regular plan but with eccentric windy paths adding interest. Flowers would have been grown to supply the house with attractive displays and perfumed blooms, but also offered a more intimate garden experience to the landscaped parkland then laid out around the mansion. An oval pond at the centre would have ben used to help watering and create an attractive centrepiece to the garden.

15. One plan of this date shows a cross here and describes a “site of an old church”. Later maps show “Bewy’s Cross” standing here. In 1720 the site was that of a building, so it’s unlikely that the cross was there at the time. It’s speculated that an ancient cross at the mouth of the Avon was relocated to Kings Weston as a garden ornament, though perhaps intended to mark the site of the old chapel. What evidence existed to suggest the church, more accurately chapel, stood here is unknown and lost when the standing buildings were demolished.

16. To create a regular new road to the stables and improve the way down the hill parts of the hill are quarried out and pushed back to leave rugged rocky cliffs against the road. New plantations are planted above them to naturalise their appearance and as a setting for the cross.

1884

The rigid Georgian plan and ambitious scale of the walled garden complex provided well for Kings Weston for over a century, with little change. The ownership of the estate had passed from the Southwell to the wealthy Miles family. Changing fashions in garden design and use and a greater demand for service buildings saw some blurring of the rigid boundaries and expansion into the surrounding landscape. The biggest change was the creation of the View Garden, probably laid out in the 1860s. The name is first recorded in 1916 when it was described as “the gem of the whole garden” at Kings Weston.

17. By the 1840s the wall of the north-east compartment is thrown down and the glasshouse and cross brought into a single garden space. About 20 years later a long axial path is laid out on the same alignment as the glasshouse, with two sets of stone steps. Fragments of these survive today. The lawns either side of the path were probably set out with ornamental flower beds. The new garden is christened the “View Garden”.

18. The Georgian glass house is passed its prime and has been rebuilt on a less ambitious scale against its original. The parts no longer covered are turned into more planting beds. 

19. A covered garden seat or alcove is built at the head of the axial path, just to one side of the entrance gate, and from which to enjoy aligned views through the gardens. Yews and box trees are planted to lead the visitor along the paths and line the back of the main garden wall.

20. Another path is laid out on a more picturesque winding course, taking in a large new rockery on its way to a small clearing around the medieval cross. It may have been whilst creating the rockery or the axial path that foundations of a building were uncovered again in the 1860s and again thought to be the chapel ruins. In 1868 the cross was described and illustrated as covered in ivy, perhaps planted for picturesque affect? The view through the trees here certainly had eye-catching views to the Severn.

21. The axial path culminated in a circular viewing platform elevated above the slope of the hill. It enjoyed distant views across the Severn and Avon towards Portishead and Wales beyond, giving the View Garden its name.

22. The old icehouse behind Kings Weston house was done away with, probably in the mid-Victorian era, and relocated to behind the old glasshouse. It was covered in earth to provide added insulation and planted around with yew trees to protect it from the sun. One yew tree was planted at the very summit of the domed icehouse and remained there until it finally fell in the 1980s, pulling the earth covering with it.

23. The original Georgian rear wall was pushed north with the land built up to form a flat platform, falling away with a steep embankment beyond. The additional space accommodated the icehouse and more paddock and building space.

24. Fox hunting had become a popular recreation activity for the Miles family and more buildings were needed to stable horses and provide storage and dog kennels. These were added to the north of the stables. A woodyard and sawmill were also added in this area.

25. The flower garden had become more formal and less focussed on providing for the house. It’s dominated by four conifers planted around a now-rectangular ornamental pond. Like the View Garden, the lawns were likely planted with floral displays of seasonal bedding plants in the Victorian fashion. This garden would shortly be transformed again, with the conifers felled and a more informal pond and rockery.