ABOUT THE FRIENDS OF ASHTON COURT MANSION (FAM)
ABOUT THE FRIENDS OF ASHTON COURT
Why?
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Ashton Court Mansion is a Grade I listed building and therefore judged to be of exceptional interest and within the top 2.5% of all listed historic buildings in the country. The Mansion is also on the Buildings at Risk Register as a building in slow decay and only 30% is in any sort of use today. Currently, some of the Mansion is in quite rapid decay.
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There are two friends groups associated with Ashton Court Mansion. The Friends of Ashton Court Mansion (FAM) and the Friends of Ashton Court Estate (FACE). Both groups are working with Bristol City Council as part of the partnerships board. This site is run by the FAM whose focus is the house and not the wider estate.
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FAM Mission Statement
Friends of Ashton Court Mansion work to promote an understanding and appreciation of the building and its history, seek support for its conservation and maintenance and give support to Artspace Lifespace, working to save the built heritage and promote the arts for people far and wide around Bristol.
History of the FAM
Ashton Court Mansion, owned and run by Bristol City Council since 1959, was closed to the public in December 2017. In May 2018 Bristol Charity Artspace Lifespace (artspacelifespace.com) stepped in to take on the running of the Mansion while options were being considered for its future. They opened the Mansion to the public for free whenever they weren’t running organised events, and welcomed 9,080 visitors to the house between May 2018 and December 2018 and 17,224 during 2019. On September 28th 2019, they concluded their programme of public opening with a free Heritage Day with tours run by the newly formed Friends of Ashton Court Mansion (FAM).
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The need for a Friends Group for the Mansion was first identified in 2016 while working on the restoration of the Lower Lodge now called Ashton Gatehouse.
The FAM was established in 2019 by Tish and Kathryn Chiswell Jones (Company Manager of Artspace Lifespace) when they joined forces and identified the need for a group of volunteers specifically focused on the Mansion.
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Bristol Civic Society campaigned for a major study commissioned by Bristol City Council in 2012, with support from Historic England, in order to assess the cost of renovation and to explore possible future uses to be completed. The study was carried out by a team from Purcell, a leading firm of consultants, led by partner Niall Phillips. Bristol City Council requested that the Civic Society host the report on the Society’s own website. A public launch event was held in City Hall on 22nd May.
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The report has now been published and is available on Bristol Civic Society's website.
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Vision
The transformation of Ashton Court Mansion from the tired old mongrel that it is today, to the uniquely rich tapestry of architectural styles, textures and tones that it could be in the foreseeable future.