HISTORY PODCASTS
These audio's have been created by the charity Artspace Lifespace supported by The Heritage Lottery Fund. It is a free resource compiling information so that people can easily find out some of the basic information available from the thousands of documents associated with Ashton Court.
If you would like to listen to our history podcasts please follow this link
Ashton Court is one of only 2% of buildings listed as Grade 1 by Historic England which designates it as a building of national and international importance. However, for the last 60 years relatively few people have been able to benefit from the court or ‘mansion’ as it was rebranded.
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Ashton Court dates from before the 11th century. The house that existed on the site circa 990, may have been a largely wooden structure within a wooden enclosure. Estune, translated as settlement by the ash tree, was first mentioned in the Domesday Book, the Great Survey of lands in England and the margins of Wales, completed in 1086 by order of King William the Conqueror. In the Domesday Book it is referred to as a wealthy estate, with a manor house, a great hall, and courtyards entered through gatehouses. This important Saxon manor – now known as Ashton Court - was given by William the Conqueror to his close ally Geoffrey de Montbray, Bishop of Coutances, who also had control of Bristol Castle.
The fortified manor passed through the hands of successive Norman overlord,s and at the end of the 14th century when Thomas De Lyon married Margaret, the wealthy widow of cloth merchant Edward Blanket, the new wealth was used to improve the house and parkland. Most notably, Thomas obtained a Royal licence for emparkment, granted in 1392 by Richard II to develop some 250 acres (100 ha) of a walled deer enclosure. This was largely to the north and west of the house and created the foundation of the parkland owned by Bristol City Council today. From that time onwards the ownership of Ashton Court is well documented.
Despite its grandeur, Ashton Court is not an architectural masterpiece but an interesting collection of styles from different eras. The arrival of a new wife at the house often brought money and a desire for change. The impressive addition which Thomas and Florence Smyth made at Ashton Court, was designed in a classical style imported from the continent. It was architecturally advanced for its time and demonstrates the wealth, position and opulent lifestyle of the Smyth family during the early seventeenth century but also holds political and religious significance. Much later, a fortune was lavished on Ashton Court by Greville Smyth when he married his cousin Emily, in order to transform the neglected manor into a splendid country house befitting the elite of society. Major Davis, a fashionable Bath Architect was given carte blanche. Anton Bantock in his book ‘The Last Smyths of Ashton Court’ states that Ashton Court was “so totally transmogrified that what architectural virtue it did contain was swamped by the neo-Gothic fantasies of Major Davis.”
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Sometime in the 1580s or 90s, The Smyth family added the south-west wing, probably in the late Elizabethan style or possibly early 17th century Jacobean.
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The radical alterations to the South West wing in the new Palladian style by 1635 made by Thomas Smyth MP are well documented.
Sir John Hugh Smyth added the north west wing in the fashionable Strawberry Hill Gothic style around the 1770s, which was later altered internally and externally.
Around 1810, a new stable wing in Regency Gothic style replaced the ‘ancient’ domestic buildings on the east side of the central south facing gatehouse. It was converted in the 1885 renovations to a music and collections room and it is possible that the return wing, (now the cafe) facing the stable yard, was built at this time.
Between 1805 and 1810 a new entrance porch was built onto the 16th century porch at the main west entrance, alongside extensive courtyard masonry works.
In 1885 the winter garden was added with a cast iron and glass ceiling that was the subject of substantial architectural praise at the time.
In the 1960s Bristol City Council demolished the 15th century kitchens and servants wing, another ancient part of the house but in very poor condition.
It should be noted that few of these building dates are easily verified as even dated drawings, plans and letters do not necessarily mean the completion or even the start of a building. Definitive dates may be found from a builder’s final bill or some letters which may exist in the thousands of Ashton Court records at the city archive and the Malago Society and could be researched made readily accessible to future investigators.
In 2018, Artspace Lifespace, a charity specialising in finding creative solutions for problem properties took on a five year lease of the building to look at creative solutions for Ashton Court Mansions future.