Description

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

External Links

• Kings Weston House official website
• Wikidata Q26268192

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)