Kings Weston House () is a historic building in Kings Weston Lane, Kingsweston, Bristol, 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, the house was used as a hospital and then later used as a school by the University of Bath 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 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 World War I 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, 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 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 as a Grade I listed building. 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, 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.
Archives Documents relating to Kings Weston House and estate, and the families that lived there, are held at Bristol Archives (Refs. 42725) (online catalogue), (Ref. 33746) (online catalogue), (Ref. 44955) (online catalogue) and (Ref. Picbox/6/Port/KW) (online catalogue).
Other records relating to Kings Weston House are held at Gloucestershire Archives.
Before Vanbrugh
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 Glostershire. 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. John Vanbrugh'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 Bristol Archives.
The park surrounding the house was extensive. An avenue extended to the southwest, and there were formal parterres to the southeast. The Kip illustration also shows a banqueting house, 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 Ormonds 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"Journals of Edward Southwell 1684-1715 British Library. RP 437/2 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.Andrew Foyle, Pevsner Architectural City Guides, Bristol 2004 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 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.
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, 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 arcade across the moulded parapet of the centre is a feature unique to Vanbrugh at this date, also found at Vanbrugh Castle, and is a precocious example of the Gothic Revival.
The Echo
The Echo is a loggia 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. 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 to view ships arriving in the Avon and Severn Estuary. Although a design exists attributed to Colen Campbell, 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".