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Ashton Court is a mansion house and estate to the west of Bristol in England. Although the estate lies mainly in North Somerset, it is owned by the City of Bristol. The mansion and stables are a Grade I listed building. Other structures on the estate are also listed.
Ashton Court has been the site of a manor house since the 11th century, and has been developed by a series of owners since then. From the 16th to 20th centuries it was owned by the Smyth family with each generation changing the house. Designs by Humphry Repton were used for the landscaping in the early 19th century. It was used as a military hospital in the First World War. In 1936 it was used as the venue for the Royal Show and, during the Second World War as an army transit camp. In 1946 the last of the Smyth family died and the house fell into disrepair before its purchase in 1959 by Bristol City Council. In the 21st century, the court remains in a poor state of repair, with large parts derelict and unusable, and in 2013 it was placed on the Heritage at Risk Register. In 2025 Historic England convened a meeting at the house to consider options for restoration.
The estate developed from the original deer park and is Grade II* listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England. It is the venue for a variety of leisure activities, including the now-defunct Ashton Court Festival, Bristol International Kite Festival and the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta. It is home to a charity, The Forest of Avon Trust.
In 1635 Thomas added a new southern front which was in the style of Inigo Jones. It was described by Collinson in 1791 in the following terms:
Further major additions were made to the building by Sir John Hugh Smyth (1734–1802). He inherited the estate in 1783 and added the new library to the north west of the house. Sir John also asked the famous landscape designer Humphry Repton for advice about the east front of the house. Repton drafted a plan but Sir John's death halted any further work on the house. However Repton's landscape designs were implemented by Sir John's successor Sir Hugh Smyth. In his book Humphry Repton gave a detailed description of the old and newer parts of the house before the library additions and included a drawing of the eastern front of the house as he saw it in about 1790.
Sir John was a bachelor. He was said, by Lady Emily Smyth, to be devoted to horses and kept an extensive stud. His importance as a major builder of Ashton Court is verified by John Evans who in 1828 wrote a book about Bristol and its surrounding area. He said:
In 1872 he commissioned the well-known architect Benjamin Ferrey to make additions which were described as follows:
Even more extensive alterations were made between 1884 and 1885. Shortly before he married Emily, the widow of George Oldham Edwards, he employed the notable Bath architect Major Charles Edward Davis to transform the house. The work took 18 months to complete. A detailed description of the alterations was given in the Bristol Mercury. in 1885. He converted the stables in the south east wing to living areas which included a huge museum for his natural history collection. He built a grand hall with richly carved oak panels. In the west wing he built a massive carved oak staircase with twist bannisters and introduced perpendicular windows. He also built a winter garden by enclosing the clock court. This is now the Winter Garden Bar. The following description of this elaborate room with a waterfall fountain is given in this newspaper article as follows:
Also in the 1880s of formal gardens were laid out including a terrace garden, which is now a lawn, a wilderness garden with basin fountain and a rose garden. Avenues of Sequoioideae and Cedrus were planted along with other specimen trees.
In 1891 Lady Emily Smyth held an interview where she outlined further details of these alterations made by Sir Greville. She also gave a few details of some interesting secret rooms and passages in the medieval part of the building on the western side which she referred to as "Drax's Kennel" and "The Fox's Hole". Sir Greville Smyth died in 1901 and Lady Emily Smyth died in 1914.
During the First World War the estate was used as a military hospital, and in the Second World War was requisitioned by the War Office and used in turn as a transit camp, RAF HQ and US Army Command HQ. The estate was the venue for the 1936 Royal Show. One of the exhibition buildings, despite its temporary nature, was an innovative piece of modernist architecture still remembered as the Gane Pavilion. It was designed by Bauhaus architect Marcel Breuer as a show house for the Bristol furniture manufacturer Crofton Gane. For most of the 20th century Ashton Court was the venue for the North Somerset Show, however this is now held in Wraxall.
The last residents of the house were Gilbert and Esme Smyth. Inheriting in 1914, they lived at the court for the next thirty years. Gilbert died in 1940 and Esme in 1946 and the house was left to their daughter Esme Francis Cavendish. She and her husband tried to sell the house immediately in 1946 to help pay death duties.The Times (London), 30 Aug 1946; pg. 7; However the Cavendish family did not succeed until thirteen years later in 1959 during which time the house was unoccupied and started to decay. It was then sold to Bristol City Council who still owns it today.
Between 1974 and 2007 the Ashton Court Festival was held in the grounds of the estate. The festival was a weekend event which featured a variety of local bands and national headliners. Mainly aimed at local residents, the festival did not have overnight camping facilities and was financed by donations and benefit gigs. Starting as a small one-day festival in 1974, the festival grew during succeeding years and was said to be Britain's largest free festival until changes brought on by government legislation resulted in compulsory fees and security fencing being introduced. After problems were caused by a temporary move to Hengrove Park in 2001, due to the foot and mouth crisis, and a washout in 2007, the organisers declared bankruptcy in 2007. Other festivals and concerts have since used the grounds, including Love Saves the Day which moved to Ashton Court from Bristol's Eastville Park in 2021. Since 2018, the mansion house has been managed by Bristol charity Artspace Lifespace, allowing the building to be open to the public for a variety of events.
The house was listed on the Heritage at Risk Register in 2013, described as being in "very bad condition and experiencing slow decay". the mansion was described as "two thirds derelict" with an estimated repair bill of £20 million. A local campaign group, Save Ashton Court Mansion, was set up to raise funds to improve its condition. In March 2025 Historic England convened a meeting of politicians including local MP Sadik Al-Hassan, council officers and heritage experts at the mansion to discuss its future.
In the early 19th century, the house was given a long façade in an attempt to provide some uniformity and some classical grandeur. However even here, the architecture does not remain faithful to a single style. At the centre of this façade is a much altered Tudor gatehouse, probably built in the 16th century as a portal to the 14th-century manor house. In order to create the long façade, the existing stables, to the right of the gatehouse, were converted to domestic use and given seven bays of Gothic windows. To the left of the gatehouse, the flanking south-west wing is of a different style. This classically designed wing has been attributed to Inigo Jones, but without supporting evidence; as with a similar attribution at Brympton d'Evercy, also in Somerset, it seems to be based solely on the alternating segmental and pointed over the ground floor windows, and ignoring the irregularities in their spacings and placings, which Jones is unlikely to have countenanced.Christopher Hussey, "Brympton D'Evercy, Somerset", in Country Life LXI (1927) pp 718ff, 7762ff, 775ff
To give the long façade with its two wings of contrasting architectural styles a uniting, common feature, the third story of oval windows of the left-hand wings, which was then topped with a Jacobean balustrade was repeated above the Gothic right-hand wing; however, inexplicably the attempt at classical unity was broken by the use of castellation instead of a balustrade on the right-hand side. Overall, its length, contrasting styles, high gatehouse and lack of symmetry give the façade a collegiate rather than domestic appearance. The focal point of the façade, the gatehouse, has multi-faceted turrets at its corners, In 1885, the gatehouse was given a Gothic makeover, which included raising its height and adding the fan vaulting to the ceiling of the passage leading, not to a great base court, as such grandiose architectural features would suggest, but to a small glazed inner courtyard (the Winter Garden). The north wing was included in the remodelling work of 1805 and given ogee headed windows in the delicate Strawberry Hill Gothic style, popular at turn of the 19th century; it was a forerunner of the more medieval ecclesiastical Gothic style that was to characterise the architecture of the 19th century, and employed at Ashton Court during the 1885 alterations. The interior also contains important Gothic decorative schemes; Andrew Foyle, writing in his Pevsner City Guide, Bristol, published in 2004, described the dining room in the north-west wing as, "perhaps the most important surviving Gothic interior in Bristol". Foyle also noted the interior's poor state of repair; the dining room was "badly decayed", the Long Gallery "gutted", and his overall impression of the house, "exciting, puzzling, neglected and intensely sad".
The mansion house and stables have been designated by Historic England as a Grade I listed building. The lower lodge to Ashton Court and attached gates, railings and bollards, which were built in 1805 by Henry Wood, are Grade II* . The lower lodge was fully refurbished in 2016 with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and is now named Ashton Gatehouse. The building is now a heritage site managed by Ashton Park School. The garden and perimeter walls and railings are also listed.
The estate covers of woods and open grassland laid out by Humphry Repton.
Clarken Combe, at the western edge of the estate, is a woodland area with a range of plant species, including narrow-lipped helleborine, which grows here in small numbers under beech. In 2002 a 700-year-old oak tree, called the Domesday Oak, was selected by The Tree Council as one of 50 Great British Trees. In 2011 a crack appeared in the trunk and oak support beams were fitted to support the tree. The supports were only partly successful and a section of the tree collapsed; the remaining part of the tree was pruned to reduce the weight of the surviving section.
There is a deer which was started in the 14th century and extended in the 16th and 17th centuries. There are still two areas of the estate with deer enclosures. The park contains a great variety of wildlife; much of the site (an area of 210.31 hectares) was notified in 1998 as a Site of Special Scientific Interest due to the presence of rare woodland including: Ctesias serra, Phloiotrya vaudoueri and Eledona agricola. The 2.37 hectares of Ashton Court Meadow is managed as a nature reserve by the Avon Wildlife Trust. It contains a wide range of flowering plants, including daucus carota, yellow-wort and knautia arvensis. Some unusual parasitic plants are also found here, such as common broomrape which feeds off clovers, and Rhinanthus minor, which feeds partly off grass. The gardens and park are listed at Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England.
Sir John Smyth
As reported by Esme Smyth, Ashton Court's last resident, Sir John Smyth (1776–1849) was responsible for the remodelling of the house. In about 1940 she was interviewed by Raymond Gorges, who was researching a book, and she gave him an engraving of the house showing the additions that she said were made by Sir John.
Sir Greville and Lady Emily Smyth
Sir Greville Smyth inherited the property in 1852 and remained a bachelor until he was 48 years old. During that time he undertook extensive renovations. He also kept a very impressive garden which was described in detail in gardening magazines and newspapers.
Recent history
Since taking ownership, the council has undertaken periodic restorations, but even after extensive investment by both the council and from Heritage Lottery Fund grants, only about a quarter of the building is occupied or usable. The available facilities of the house are rented out for business conferences, parties and weddings. In 2013 a fire damaged the northern wing. It was contained by Avon Fire and Rescue Service, otherwise the rest of the building would have been at risk.
Archives
Archives of the Ashton Court estate (including estate management and estate office papers) and personal papers of the Smyth family are held by Bristol Archives (Ref. AC) ( online catalogue). Bristol Archives also holds photos and papers about the redevelopment of Ashton Court mansion and stables (Ref. 43326) ( online catalogue) and (Ref. 45390) ( online catalogue). Other records relating to the Ashton Court estate are also held by Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre and the University of Bristol Special Collections.
Architecture
to the right, a Victorian Porte cochere in the centre, simple Tudor mullion and Gothic tracery windows, plus pseudo-medieval battlements and chaste English Renaissance gables.]] Due to successive re-modelling and enlargements the architecture at Ashton Court is complex and seldom what it seems. The core of the house, a 15th-century manor, has been obliterated by later wings, which have in turn been remodelled and altered, most substantially around 1635. Therefore, the plan of the house has evolved as irregular with many juxtapositions and little cohesion; while the majority of the house was built in the 17th century, a time of classical architecture, remodelling and alteration to the fenestration has created an overall Gothic appearance.
Location and surroundings
The house stands within a large estate spanning the boundary between Bristol and North Somerset, approximately from the city centre. It is on the western side of the River Avon close to the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the suburb of Leigh Woods and the Leigh Woods National Nature Reserve which are east of Ashton Court. To the north and west is open countryside. The estate was previously much larger than it is today and included areas which are now suburbs of Bristol including Ashton Gate, Ashton Vale and Southville where the Greville Smyth Park is located. The land for the park was donated by the Smyth family and then landscaped by the city council. It includes two pitch-and-putt golf courses, a disc golf course, an orienteering course and horse riding and mountain bike trails. Bristol's weekly parkrun event (a free, timed 5 km run organised by volunteers) is held at Ashton Court.
See also
Bibliography
(2025). 9781874357186, Pisces Publications. ISBN 9781874357186
(2025). 9780300126587, Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300126587
External links
Categories: Country Houses In Somerset, Sites Of Special Scientific Interest In Avon, Sites Of Special Scientific Interest Notified In 1998, Parks And Open Spaces In Bristol, Houses Completed In 1633, Grade I Listed Buildings In Bristol, Grade Ii* Listed Buildings In Bristol, Grade Ii Listed Buildings In Bristol, Buildings And Structures In North Somerset, History Of Somerset, Grade I Listed Buildings In North Somerset, Grade Ii Listed Buildings In North Somerset, Grade Ii* Listed Buildings In North Somerset, Historic House Museums In Bristol, Music Venues In Bristol, Structures On The Heritage At Risk Register In Somerset, Grade Ii* Listed Houses In Somerset, History Of Bristol, Grade Ii* Listed Parks And Gardens In Bristol, 1633 Establishments In England, World War Ii Prisoner-of-war Camps In England, Gardens By Humphry Repton
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