Kings Weston Estate: 11 things you don’t know

A unique and well-hidden gem, the Kings Weston Estate spans 300 acres across the north of the city and is free and open for all to enjoy. Once part of the country’s high society ‘circuit’, the estate has lost some of it 17th-century grandeur, but still possesses one of the largest collections of buildings designed by Sir John Vanbrugh – one of Britain’s most famous architects.

1… Kings Weston Estate was once famous throughout Europe for the gardens and spectacular views. It attracted German princes, Russian aristocracy and even the French nobleman Malsherbes, defence council to Louis XVI – obviously before they were both guillotined. 

2) The Stone Dial, on Penpole Point, cost the Merchant Venturers £5 to repair in 1668 and is still there almost 350 years later. It was used as a lookout point and navigation aid by merchants and seamen keen to secure a safe heading into the mouth of the Avon.  

3) Hidden in Penopole Wood there is a tight circle of lime trees planted on a pudding-bowl mound. Created as a Georgian garden feature it was later adopted by the Scouts of Bristol as an open-air chapel when they took on the area as a camp site in 1937. An altar and pews were created from logs. 

4) Kings Weston House was begun in 1712 to the designs of Sir John Vanbrugh, one of Britain’s greatest architects and designer of Blenheim Palace. The effect of the distinctive arcade of castellated chimneys on the roof was a feature Vanbrugh was anxious to see “rightly hit off” to give the impression of an ancient castle from a distance.

5) The Echo, a garden building designed by Vanbrugh at one end of the garden, takes its name from an echo that once repeated “eight or ten times” back towards the house. 

6) A marble statue once stood on a plinth in the Echo. It was pushed down in the 1950s, but rescued by students of Bristol Technical College. Sadly it was thrown in the ash heap after the police took on the building in 1972 and is yet to be relocated. 

7) The parkland is full of important and historic trees. Many were imported to the estate from around the world, but a series of 18 lime trees forms the oldest avenue in Bristol, and dates to around 1700.

8) During World War II the parkland was transformed into an army camp, the remains of which can still be found. After the war the barrack huts were taken over by squatters, with the support of the city Corporation, and renamed “Stolen Paradise”. 

9) A fashionable, but mysterious menagerie, is known to have existed as a garden feature in 1772, but it’s not recorded what exotic animals it might once have hosted.

10) Jane Austen records Kings Weston Estate as “being on the circuit” and mentions it in two of her novels; Emma and Northanger Abbey.

11) There are still stunning views across the Severn from Kings Weston. Sunset, when the light glistens off the estuary and the hills of Wales are silhouetted beyond, has always been the best time to admire them.

For more information, history and how you can help to preserve this fantastic part of Bristol, visit the website of the Kings Weston Action Group: www.kwag.org.uk