Kings Weston House

Details

BRISTOL

ST5477 KINGS WESTON LANE, Shirehampton 901-1/24/1742 (South West side) 08/01/59 Kings Weston House

GV I

House. 1710-25. By Sir John Vanbrugh. Altered 1764-75 by Robert Mylne. For Sir Robert Southwell. Limestone ashlar, ashlar ridge stacks, roof not visible. U-shaped double-depth plan. Baroque style. 2 storeys, attic and basement; 7-window range. An attached portico of 6 giant Corinthian columns, paired at the ends, steps forward at the top of a flight of steps, with flanking projecting ends, a cornice band under the attic storey, and a string below a full-width parapet with large, flaming corner urns; the small, central pedimented doorway has tapering pilasters and 2-leaf half-glazed door. The portico windows have semicircular heads and bracketed cills, with 6/6-pane sashes, and a lunette in the pediment; the ends each have 2 windows with segmental heads and flat surrounds. A chimney arcade of square stacks linked by semicircular arches and an impost band follows the plan of the house. The SE front has a central section with steps up to a tripartite rusticated Doric doorcase with a wide, shallow pediment, alternate vermiculated jambs to a C19 8/8-pane and flanking plate-glass sashes, with a large key rising through the open entablature; above is a large window with a cornice on scrolled brackets, flanked by semicircular-arched windows. Above the modillion cornice the attic string is broken by a keyed, semicircular-arched window, below a raised, bracketed parapet. The NW front has a slightly projecting centre with a c1770 canted bay. The plainer rear NE elevation has a deep recess, reduced by Mylne, and the chimney ranges turn in on themselves. INTERIOR: decoratively almost entirely of Mylne's re-modelling, 1764-8, with plasterwork by Thomas Stocking. The front Stone Hall or Saloon has a flagged floor, plaster surrounds with garlands to portraits, and a palmette frieze at the height of the pedimented doorcases, which have half Ionic column jambs, and a grey marble fireplace by Derall. The rear Stair Hall is the most unaltered part of the interior, ground-floor semicircular-arched wall niches, with paintings of 1719-20, and doorways all round, and a very fine hanging open-well staircase to the first floor, with turned balusters, fluted newels, curtail and ramped rail; open galleries to the first and second floors and 9 late C18 roof lights; a fine early C18 timber fireplace with fluted Ionic pilsters and blue tiled back. Most of the other rooms have neo-classical plaster decoration of the Mylne period. Original vaulting to the basement. HISTORICAL NOTE: built for Sir Robert Southwell, on the foundations of the existing manor house, by George Townesend. One of Vanbrugh's smallest houses, yet achieving a monumental effect of great compression and tightness. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 469; Architectural History: Downes K: Kings Weston Papers Catalogue: 1967-).

Listing NGR: ST5435777457

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

379894

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: North Somerset and Bristol, (1958), 469
Architectural History in Architectural History, (1967)

Other
Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic interest in England, Part 1 Avon,

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