Kings Weston House () is a historic building in Kings Weston Lane, Kingsweston,

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

, England. Built during the early 18th century, it was remodelled several times, most recently in the mid-19th century. The building was owned by several generations of the Southwell family. By

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, the house was used as a hospital and then later used as a school by the

University of Bath The University of Bath is a public research university in Bath, England. Bath received its royal charter in 1966 as Bath University of Technology, along with a number of other institutions following the Robbins Report. Like the University ...

School of Architecture. The building is today used as a conference and wedding venue, as well as a communal residence.

History

The building was built between 1712 and 1719, and was designed by Sir

John Vanbrugh Sir John Vanbrugh (; 24 January 1664 (baptised) – 26 March 1726) was an English architect, dramatist and herald, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restor ...

for the lawyer and politician Edward Southwell on the site of an earlier Tudor house. It was then remodelled in 1763–1768 by Robert Mylne and again between 1845 and 1850 by Thomas Hopper. Visiting the house in c. 1801, the author and inventor, George William Manby,remarked that its interior:

'corresponds with the exterior for variety and elegance; its collection of paintings is numerous, highly finished, and extremely valuable, being by celebrated masters; they are in fine preservation'.

The Kings Weston estate possesses one of the largest collections of buildings designed by Sir John Vanbrugh in the UK. Whilst the house and the majority of the estate's buildings are still standing, others have been demolished or have been heavily altered. Bristol is the only UK city outside London to possess buildings designed by Vanbrugh.Foyle, p. 292 A significant architectural feature is the grouping of all the chimneys into a massive arcade. The house passed through several generations of the Southwell family until the estate was sold in 1833 to Mr Philip John Miles for £210,000, and became the family seat. During the

the House was converted into a hospital though the house continued as a family home until 1935 when, on the death of

Philip Napier Miles Philip Napier Miles (21 January 1865 – 19 July 1935) was a philanthropist and musician in Bristol, and a descendent of the Napier family. He was High Sheriff of Gloucestershire for 1916–17. Life and family He was the only son of Philip ...

, it was auctioned and bought by Bristol Municipal Charities and leased to the education authority for use as a school. It later became the Bristol Technical College School of Architecture which later developed into the University of Bath's School of Architecture. In 1970 Bristol Corporation obtained a 50% grant from the

Home Office The Home Office (HO), also known (especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament) as the Home Department, is the United Kingdom's interior ministry. It is responsible for public safety and policing, border security, immigr ...

and purchased the House for £305,000 to set up a Police Training Centre for Bristol Constabulary and was used as such until 1995. It was then abandoned for five years and between 2000 and 2012 was leased from Bristol City Council and partially restored as a Business and Conference Centre by local businessman John Hardy. After April 2011 the lease on Kings Weston House was put on the market for £2 million. Following a short period of closure to the public the house was sold to a new leaseholder, local businessman Norman Routledge, in December 2012. Since then the house has been extensively renovated and has opened again as a conference and wedding venue, as well as a communal residence. It has been designated by

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with prot ...

as a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. Buildings in the grounds include a Loggia, Brewhouse and The Echo, which are all Grade I listed in their own right. The house is surrounded by parkland and an area of woodland bordering the suburbs of

Shirehampton Shirehampton is a district of Bristol in England, near Avonmouth, at the northwestern edge of the city. It originated as a separate village, retains a High Street with a parish church and shops, and is still thought of as a village by many of ...

, Sea Mills and Lawrence Weston. An iron bridge across Kings Weston Lane connects the estate to that of Blaise Castle. In April 2011 the Kings Weston Action Group (KWAG) was formed as a volunteer organisation with the ambition to conserve and enhance the Grade II Registered Historic Landscape around the house. The remains of the historic park consists of almost 220 acres split in ownership between Bristol City Council and the National Trust, whose 93 acres of Shirehampton Park are leased to Shirehampton Golf Club. The whole landscape is accessible as either public park or by public footpaths, and includes areas of common land at Penpole Point.

Before Vanbrugh

Sir Robert Southwell in a painting by Kneller hanging at Kings Weston House

Sir Robert Southwell purchased the Kings Weston estate from Humphrey Hooke, a Bristol merchant, in 1679.Gomme, Jenner and Bryan, p. 107 In 1712 a birds-eye view of the estate by Johannes Kip was published in Robert Atkyns' ''The Ancient and Present State of Glocestershire''. It showed what appears to be a late Tudor house, with a layout similar to that of the current building, having a three-sided entrance court. Vanbrugh later used part of the old foundations in his rebuilding, as well as retaining some of the old walls and a staircase in one of the turrets that were in the angles of the entrance court, though the staircase was later removed.

's designs for the house (Ref. 33746)
online catalogue
and Johannes Kip's engraving of the house (Ref. 44955)
online catalogue
still exist and are available to the public at

. The park surrounding the house was extensive. An avenue extended to the southwest, and there were formal

parterres A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, plats, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the ...

to the southeast. The Kip illustration also shows a

banqueting house The Banqueting House, on Whitehall in the City of Westminster, central London, is the grandest and best-known survivor of the architectural genre of banqueting houses, constructed for elaborate entertaining. It is the only large surviving comp ...

, which survived as a ruin until 1966, when it was destroyed by vandals. An architectural drawing dated 1707 describes it as being 'after the Modell of the

Duke of Ormond The peerage title Earl of Ormond and the related titles Duke of Ormonde and Marquess of Ormonde have a long and complex history. An earldom of Ormond has been created three times in the Peerage of Ireland. History of Ormonde titles The earldom ...

s at Richmond', and it consisted of two floors, the lower one a workspace and the upper serving as the dining area. Because the building was on a steep slope, both floors were accessible from ground level, and the south façade consisted of a single storey. This south façade was constructed of red rubbing bricks laid in Flemish bond with exceptionally fine jointing, laid with a little less than 1/16 inch of slaked lime putty.

Current buildings

On 29 April Edward Southwell wrote in his journal at Kings Weston "Upwards of 60 men preparing stones and digging the foundation of the new house" and on 16 June 1712 work formally began on building the new house by John Vanbrugh. His client, Edward Southwell, did not desire a house on a monumental scale.Gomme, Jenner and Bryan, p. 108 The result was one of Vanbrugh's smaller houses. It is also his severest in style, obtaining high architectural drama by the well judged disposition of elements that are few in number, and simple in their nature. The exterior of the house would have been at the point of completion in 1717, the date on the contract for one of the parapet vases.Gomme, Jenner and Bryan, p. 113 The interior would have been virtually complete by 1719, when the design for inlay on the stair landings was drawn up. Two of the facades have since been remodelled, by Robert Mylne, who remodelled the interior in the 1760s. The stone, which was quarried on the site, was originally ochre in colour but has weathered to an orange-pink.Foyle, p. 291 The arcade formed by linking the chimneys, which rises above the roof, is a notable external feature of the building, reminiscent of the belvederes of

Blenheim Palace Blenheim Palace ( ) is a country house in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England. It is the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough. Originally called Blenheim Castle, it has been known as Blenheim Palace since the 19th century. One of England's larg ...

and producing a 'castle air'. It is square in shape and open on the northeast. The current structure is the result of a rebuilding in 1968, using

Bath Stone Bath Stone is an oolitic limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate originally obtained from the Middle Jurassic aged Great Oolite Group of the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines under Combe Down, Somerset, England. Its h ...

. The entrance front, on the southwest, has a centre containing six Corinthian pilasters, with those at each side paired to produce three bays, each of which contains a round arched window. The pediment has a central

lunette A lunette (French ''lunette'', 'little moon') is a crescent- or half-moon–shaped or semi-circular architectural space or feature, variously filled with sculpture, painted, glazed, filled with recessed masonry, or void. A lunette may also be ...

, and each side consists of two bays in which the windows have wide flat surrounds. There are four parapet vases. The steps originally had low flank walls perpendicular to the facade, which were removed in the later remodelling.Gomme, Jenner and Bryan, p. 109 On the southeast facade, the centre has a Doric temple front with open pediment, which surrounds the doorway. The centre has an attic as its upper storey, topped by a blocking course with scrolled supports at each end. A design with a pediment was prepared for this front, but is thought never to have been built. Though the only decoration is the rustication on the Doric temple's pilasters, a remarkably rich effect is achieved. The northeast and northwest facades of Vanbrugh's original design were entirely undecorated, and a consequent lack of popular appeal may be the reason why they were largely destroyed in later remodelling.Gomme, Jenner and Bryan, p. 110 Vanbrugh's northwest facade consisted of a single flat surface, in which a Venetian window on each floor filled the central space between two shallow projections. Perhaps to improve the view down to Avonmouth, the centre was remodelled by Mylne with a canted bay window, at odds with the tautness of Vanbrugh's overall design of the house, in which all planes were parallel or perpendicular to the walls. On the northeast the wall was moved forward during nineteenth-century remodelling, destroying an aesthetically significant alignment between wall projections and the break in the roof arcade, which had been present in Vanbrugh's design.Gomme, Jenner and Bryan, p. 111 Visitors to the house as it stood after the completion of Vanbrugh's design would have first encountered a huge entrance saloon, two stories high.Gomme, Jenner and Bryan, p. 112 Beyond this was a stair hall of three storeys in height, with arched openings to the entrance saloon at first-floor height, so that the upper part of the entrance saloon could be seen from within it. These arches were filled in as part of Mylne's remodelling, which though it increased the comfort and charm, reduced the spatial drama. The additional wall space in the entrance saloon was designed to display Southwell's recently inherited collection of ancestral portraits, and Thomas Stocking was employed to execute a scheme of plaster framing for these to Mylne's design.Gomme, Jenner and Bryan, p. 182 A black and white chequered marble floor and a chimneypiece by John Devall were also added to the entrance saloon at this time.

Outbuildings

Brewhouse

The Brewhouse, by Vanbrugh, can be dated, on the grounds that it shows no Palladian influence, to 1718 or earlier. Such features as the huge keystone, set above an arched doorway, and the prominently silled lunette window above, are typical of Vanbrugh's style. The

machicolated In architecture, a machicolation () is an opening between the supporting corbels of a battlement through which defenders could target attackers who had reached the base of the defensive wall. A smaller related structure that only protects key poi ...

arcade across the moulded parapet of the centre is a feature unique to Vanbrugh at this date, also found at

Vanbrugh Castle Vanbrugh Castle is a house designed and built by John Vanbrugh around 1719 for his own family. It is located on Maze Hill on the eastern edge of Greenwich Park in London, to the north of Blackheath, London, Blackheath, with views to the west pas ...

, and is a precocious example of the

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

The Echo

The Echo is a

loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior Long gallery, gallery or corridor, often on an upper level, sometimes on the ground level of a building. The corridor is open to the elements because its outer wall is only parti ...

at the end of the southeast axis of the building, with a façade of four piers of rusticated stonework, of which alternate courses are projecting and

vermiculated Vermiculation is a surface pattern of dense but irregular lines, so called from the Latin meaning "little worm" because the shapes resemble worms, worm casts, or worm tracks in mud or wet sand. The word may be used in a number of contexts for ...

. It has large vermiculated keystones at the heads of the three arches. It is attributed to Vanbrugh, its features being almost identical to a Vanbrugh design of 1722 for a single archway.

Banqueting loggia

The loggia was added to a pre-existing banqueting house dating from 1705. Vanbrugh's new front turned that axis of the building ninety degrees so it would relate to the main house to the south west and the Great Terrace that provided a long promenade into the woods beyond. Designs for the loggia date to between 1716 and 1720 and drawings of the building exist in both the collections of Bristol Records Office and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Penpole Lodge

Several designs exist for this building which was sited at the far extremity of the Kings Weston estate to the west, and acted as both an eye-catcher from the house and a

belvedere Belvedere (from Italian, meaning "beautiful sight") may refer to: Places Australia *Belvedere, Queensland, a locality in the Cassowary Coast Region Africa * Belvedere (Casablanca), a neighborhood in Casablanca, Morocco * Belvedere, Harare, Zi ...

to view ships arriving in the Avon and Severn Estuary. Although a design exists attributed to

Colen Campbell Colen Campbell (15 June 1676 – 13 September 1729) was a pioneering Scottish architect and architectural writer who played an important part in the development of the Georgian style. For most of his career, he resided in Italy and England. As ...

, it is undoubtedly Vanbrugh's final design that was constructed some time in about 1724. The building took the form of an archway over which was a small room, sometimes referred to as the "Breakfasting room". After the estate was sold in the 1930s the lodge became derelict and was demolished by Bristol City Council in 1952, though the building was not removed entirely. In 2012 the Kings Weston Action Group cleared the walls and surrounding area so that some idea of the scale of the original building could be obtained.

Kingsweston Inn

Enough drawings of Kingsweston Inn exist for this building to the south east of the main house to be attributed to Vanbrugh. A series of sketch drawings in Bristol Record Office titled "ale house" compare almost exactly with the built dimensions of the former inn. The inn was heavily rebuilt in the nineteenth century and extended outwards to the south east. The inn closed in the early twentieth century and the building was converted into several houses, a function it continues to perform today.

Blacksmith's cottage

A building on Kingsweston lane bears all the hallmarks of another design by Sir John Vanbrugh though no documentary or illustrative evidence supports this. The building is known to have existed by 1720 and demonstrates a number of characteristic design features employed by Vanbrugh. The building was in use as a blacksmith's forge and cottage in 1772; a use for which the building may have been designed.

Stables and Kitchen gardens

The complex of stables and kitchen gardens at Kings Weston were devised by Edward Southwell III who was already making plans whilst on the Grand Tour between 1759 and 1762. Robert Mylne was studying in Rome when Southwell visited and the pair may well have met there prior to Mylne's engagement on the detailed designs for the stable buildings in 1763. The Stables are noted in Mylne's diaries, now held in the Library of the RIBA, as having been begun in 1763. The whole of the extensive matrix of kitchen gardens, stables, accommodation pavilions and a large square pond are executed to a single unified design. The stables are located on the north side of Napier Miles Road and a large glasshouse and yards were laid out either side of them. An ice house was added later. To the south of the road a series of enclosed walled gardens were laid out surrounding a square pond that replaced an earlier horse pond. The pond was partially ornamental, but served a variety of practical uses including the keeping of fish, provision of a constant water supply to the gardens and ice in the winter, and the washing of horses and carriages by means of access ramps to water level. In 1938 the House in the Garden was built at the centre of the walled gardens for the widowed Sybil Miles (née Gonne) when Kings Weston House and much of the estate were sold. The house and walled gardens south of the road are now part of Kingsweston Special School. After a protracted period of decay the stables were proposed for demolition in 1958. After a local campaign they were saved and Bristol Constabulary rebuilt them to create a police station which opened in 1960. In 1954 the medieval Bewys Cross was moved from its location north of Napier Miles Road to a new position beside the pond. The cross is thought to have been brought to the Kings Weston estate from its original location close to the mouth of the Avon in the nineteenth century. The stables and pavilions are an early example of neo-classical architecture and are particularly important in the context of the city of Bristol. The walled gardens and pavilions, and the ice house are on the Heritage at Risk Register whilst the stables have been converted to houses.

Shirehampton Lodge

There are five of the original six lodges remaining at the entrance points onto the Kings Weston Estate: Henbury Lodge, Park Lodge, Home Lodge, Wood Lodge, and Shirehampton Lodge. Penpole Lodge was demolished in 1952. All the remaining lodges are Grade II listed. Of the remaining five lodges, Shirehampton Lodge on Park Hill is the most architecturally ambitious, and can be attributed to Robert Mylne who worked elsewhere on the estate for the Southwell family. The building has a portico carried on four Roman Doric columns, and a gate once closed off Park Hill before it. Although there are no specific mentions to the lodge in Mylne's diary, it may be the "lodge and tea room" mentioned as his last design work at Kings Weston in 1768 which he "made a gift" of to Edward Southwell. Shirehampton Lodge strongly resembles similar buildings designed by Mylne as bridge-keeper’s lodges on the

Gloucester and Sharpness Canal The Gloucester and Sharpness Canal (also known as the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal) is a ship canal in the west of England, between Gloucester and Sharpness, completed in 1827. For much of its length the canal runs close to the tidal River S ...

The Estate

View from Shirehampton Park on the Kings Weston Estate

The Kings Weston Estate is a Registered Historic Landscape and is protected with a Grade II listing on the

Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England #REDIRECT Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England {{R from move ...

. Parts of the landscape lie within the Kingsweston and Trym Valley Conservation Areas defined by Bristol City Council. Much of the landscaped parkland around Kings Weston House remains open and is accessible by the public. 220 acres around the house including Penpole Wood and the Home Park are in the ownership of Bristol City Council, whilst a further 90 acres including the Shirehampton Park portion of the estate is owned by the National Trust. The landscaped grounds were developed during the seventeenth century following the purchase of the manor by Sir Robert Southwell in 1679. Robert keenly redesigned the formal gardens with the assistance of

John Evelyn John Evelyn (31 October 162027 February 1706) was an English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, who is now best known as a diary, diarist. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society. John Evelyn's Diary, ...

, including the creation of parterre and 'wilderness' gardens, formal avenues and the laying out of drives through the woodland. Robert's son Edward continued working on the landscape setting to the house following the completion of the new building in about 1720. Bristol Record Office holds a series of drawings illustrating projects to enhance the gardens. This included the construction of Penpole Lodge, the removal of thirty feet of hillside from Kingsweston Hill, and several projects for "Longcombe". The latter show that Edward Southwell was extending the designed landscape southwards to cover the area now known as Shirehampton Park. Thomas Wright is recorded as having been engaged in redesigning the landscape in conjunction with Edward Southwell III immediately on the return of the latter to England from the Grand Tour in 1762. Letters now lodged at Bristol Record Office detail a close friendship between Wright and his client. In a journal entry in 1783

John Wesley John Wesley ( ; 2 March 1791) was an English cleric, Christian theology, theologian, and Evangelism, evangelist who was a principal leader of a Christian revival, revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The societies ...

described "Lord Clifford's woods at King's Weston" as "amazingly beautiful: I have seen nothing equal to them in the West of England, and very few in other parts".Journal entry for Thursday 24 August 1783 in After a subsequent visit he noted the house to be "one of the most beautiful I ever saw ... the prospect is fine every way commanding both the land and the water".Journal entry for Saturday 27 October 1788 in By the turn of the nineteenth century the estate was nationally famous for what a contemporary guide to the seats of the gentry called its "exquisitely beautiful and uncommonly extensive" prospect northwards across the Severn Estuary to Wales, and southwards over the River Avon towards the

Avon Gorge The Avon Gorge () is a 1.5-mile (2.5-kilometre) long Canyon, gorge on the River Avon (Bristol), River Avon in Bristol, England. The gorge runs south to north through a limestone ridge west of Bristol city centre, and about 3 miles (5&nbs ...

and

. It formed the climax of well-published rides from fashionable resorts such as

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

,e.g. - but Warner found the house disgusting to the eye and thought the view could have been improved by judicious planting. Clifton and

Hotwells Hotwells is a neighbourhood in the English port city of Bristol. It is located to the south of and below the high ground of Clifton, and directly to the north of the Floating Harbour. The southern entrance to the Avon Gorge, which connects th ...

returning across Kingsweston Hill, Blaise Castle Estate and

Westbury on Trym Westbury-on-Trym (sometimes written without hyphenation) is a suburb in the north of the City of Bristol, near the suburbs of Stoke Bishop, Westbury Park, Henleaze, Southmead and Henbury, in the southwest of England. The place is partly name ...

Jane Austen Jane Austen ( ; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for #List of works, her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment on the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century ...

has characters of hers talk of excursions to the estate in her novels

Northanger Abbey ''Northanger Abbey'' ( ) is a coming-of-age novel and a satire of Gothic fiction, Gothic novels written by the English author Jane Austen. Although the title page is dated 1818 and the novel was published posthumously in 1817 with ''Persuasio ...

and Emma (but in both cases those characters are generally depicted as foolish by the author). It also became a popular destination for artists of the

Romantic Movement Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...

, attracting the likes of James Muller, Francis Danby and

Nicholas Pocock Nicholas Pocock (2 March 1740 – 9 March 1821) was an English artist known for his many detailed paintings of naval battles during the age of sail. Birth and early career at sea Pocock was born in Bristol in 1740, the son of a seaman.Chatte ...

. Poets including

Robert Southey Robert Southey (; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic poetry, Romantic school, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth an ...

and

Walter Savage Landor Walter Savage Landor (30 January 177517 September 1864) was an English writer, poet, and activist. His best known works were the prose ''Imaginary Conversations,'' and the poem "Rose Aylmer," but the critical acclaim he received from contempora ...

also visited, and wrote about the spectacle of the distant views of Wales from Kingsweston Hill and Penpole Point. Much of the former charm of Kings Weston has since been overshadowed by the development of the industrial suburb of

Avonmouth Avonmouth ( ) is a port and outer suburb of Bristol, England, on the north bank of the mouth of the River Avon and the eastern shore of the Severn Estuary. Part of the Port of Bristol, Avonmouth Docks is important to the region's maritime eco ...

to the north and the construction of the Lawrence Weston housing estate in the years following the Second World War. Further decay has resulted from the loss of views through lack of regular maintenance, allowing self-seeded trees and shrubs to invade formerly open slopes. However the Shirehampton Park section of the estate has fared better, with the views towards the Avon Gorge remaining unobstructed.

Kings Weston Action Group

The Kings Weston Action Group or KWAG is a volunteer organisation established in April 2011 and focussed on the promotion, conservation and enhancement of the historic former parkland surrounding Kings Weston House in North

An exhibition of the history of the Kings Weston estate held in the Echo in September 2011

The Kings Weston Action Group was set up to "protect the Kings Weston Estate and House, fight for its future, and protect its past". It was formed by a group of volunteers formed from local people, users of the parkland, and professionals interested in the conservation of the Grade II-registered historic landscape park and the

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

house. The group was established after the announcement of the sale of the Grade I-listed house and the recognition that the condition of the landscaped grounds in the ownership of

Bristol City Council Bristol City Council is the local authority for the city of Bristol, in South West England. Bristol has had a council from medieval times, which has been reformed on numerous occasions. Since 1996 the council has been a unitary authority, being ...

were in an advanced state of decay and in urgent need of conservation. The group's objectives were initially stated as to lobby the City Council to engineer a conservation and management plan for the estate, to monitor the Grade I-listed house and garden buildings, and to source funding to develop the grounds into a first-class green space for everyone to enjoy. A new conservation plan was commissioned by the City Council following pressure from the Kings Weston Action Group and was supported by a grant from the Bristol Buildings Preservation Trust in October 2011. KWAG was launched in spring 2011 with an appeal for information that could lead to the recovery of a lost statue, and it has since put on a number of exhibitions, learning events and campaigns. Since January 2012, it has also run regular monthly working party events focussed on taking direct action to help conserve the estate with the support of Bristol City Council and the National Trust. KWAG has produced exhibition material based on its discoveries. Additional information was published in the form of a walking guide to promote the estate in 2012, which was launched at one of the group's regular walking tours. Several archaeology projects have been undertaken by the group with the input of volunteers, including a geophysical survey in conjunction with the

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a public university, public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Br ...

and the recording of the ruins of Penpole Lodge, a lost building by

Sir John Vanbrugh Sir John Vanbrugh (; 24 January 1664 (baptised) – 26 March 1726) was an English architect, dramatist and herald, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restorat ...

, in conjunction with officers from

South Gloucestershire Council South Gloucestershire Council is the local authority of South Gloucestershire, a local government district in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, England, covering an area to the north of the city of Bristol. The council is a unitary auth ...

References

Sources

* *

External links

{{commons category, Kings Weston House
Kings Weston House

Kings Weston Action Group
English Baroque architecture Country houses in Bristol Grade I listed buildings in Bristol Grade I listed houses Gardens by Capability Brown John Vanbrugh buildings Grade II listed parks and gardens in Bristol Georgian architecture in Bristol