The Long Gallery was at various times also known as the Picture Gallery or the Drawing Room.
The long south west wing in which the Long Gallery is situated was largely created by Thomas and Florence Smyth in the 1630s. It is thought to be an adaptation of an earlier Jacobean long gallery possibly built for Thomas’s father in the early 1600s. Thomas refaced it in Inigo Jones’ new Palladian style.
THE WINDOWS FROM THE EXTERIOR
Image: ©Anton Bantock
The windows when viewed from the outside do not have symmetrical spacings and this may reflect the arrangements of the internal rooms at that time.
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Clearly a long gallery would not have been subdivided into smaller rooms and it is possible that it may have been on the first floor originally. Positioning of large floor beams, flues and potential partitions indicate a more complex structure and would merit further study.
INTERIOR WNDOWS AND CORRIDORS
Image: FAM volunteer (2021)
The west part of the south west wing may date to the early 17th century when in 1604 Hugh Smyth married Elizabeth Gorges, a god-daughter of Elizabeth 1st. He was knighted in1611 and gained great wealth. It is possible they may have extended or built a fashionable Long Gallery.
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The north wall of the Long Gallery was enclosed with a new ground floor wall and windows when the west front was opened up in 1810, thus creating a new corridor. Some of the north facing 17th century windows were covered when panelling was installed. The corridor was probably used by servants to gain access to the spiral stair in the south west corner and up to a similar corridor on the first floor. Illustrations appear to indicate that the first floor was constructed later.
TWENTIETH CENTURY
Image: FAM volunteer (2021)
As early as 1933 the poor condition of some parts of the Mansion had been noted in particular in the Long Gallery where the ceiling had started to come away from the floor above, and subsidence and damp were starting to have an effect on the fabric of the Mansion.
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The Long Gallery today is a shadow of its former self.
1970S RESTORATION WORK
Image: Bristol Evening Post
During the 1970s Bristol City Council restoration work, the front or south facing wall had to be underpinned. All of the surviving 16th century style wooden panelling was removed exposing the blocked windows on the north side. The timber flooring was removed and was replaced by a concrete floor. All of the plasterwork, visible in late Victorian images, was also removed.
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At around the same time the space was divided to form modern offices at its eastern end cutting the overall length of the Long Gallery space by a third. The remainder of the space is used to store doors, architraves, windows and other joinery removed from various parts of the Mansion during the 1970s work.
HISTORIC ENGLAND LISTING
Image: Mb6058©Bristol Culture
Ashton Court Mansion is a grade 1 listed building, first listed in 1952. The listing refers in particular to a feature of the Long Gallery - the fireplace.
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The Historic England listing details:
‘… Drawing Room (Long Gallery): large bolection* moulded fire surround with Ionic columns (remains of C17 frieze survive in another room) …’
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* See Glossary
THE FIREPLACE
Image: FAM volunteer (2021)
The source of information for the 1952 listing is given as: Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: North Somerset and Bristol, (1958) however the Long Gallery fireplace is not specifically mentioned. In the 2004 edition of Bristol/Andrew Foyle (Pevsner Architectural Guide Series) the fireplace is specifically mentioned:
‘… C18 panelled rooms at the E end of the SW wing, planned in enfilade* with the now gutted Long Gallery. This contains a huge Ionic black marble chimneypiece. …’
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This magnificent fireplace is still there but little else survives today.
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*See Glossary
EARLY 20TH CENTURY IMAGES
Image: Mb6042©Bristol Culture
Anton Bantock spent the latter part of the 20th century studying Ashton Court Mansion records and interviewing retired Smyth servants from the Mansion.
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He called the Long Gallery the Picture Gallery and indeed images taken during the early 20th century show a well lit room hung with pictures and portraits of all shapes and sizes.
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This image shows the view into the Long Gallery from the Large Panelled Lounge which was then called the Dining Room.
ROOM LAYOUT
Image:© Anton Bantock
Anton’s hand-drawn reproduction of a 1880s survey shows access to the Long Gallery was from the Dining Room (now called the Large Panelled Lounge) and from a door in the Inner Hall which is now the entrance to the modern offices
EARLY 20TH CENTURY IMAGES
Image:Mb6057©Bristol Culture
At the western end of the Long Gallery the door which opens in from the bottom of the 17th century spiral staircase and the French doors and shutters to outside have survived the 1970s works in situ.
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Find out more about the white marble figure in this image ...
EARLY 20TH CENTURY IMAGES
Image:Mb6056©Bristol Culture
In the 1920s Hector Paterson, a friend of Esme Smyth’s the last owner of Ashton Court, was invited to take a series of images of some of the Ashton Court Mansion interiors and these are the images that enable us to see how the Long Gallery looked during the Victorian period and shortly afterwards.
At some point the Long Gallery had been given an elaborate mock Jacobean plaster ceiling. Portraits and other paintings hang from the walls and in the typical taste of the period the whole room was full of a variety chairs, large and small tables, display cabinets full of china, large pot plants, vases of flowers, statues and large pieces of decorative china. The floor was covered with a large patterned carpet. The fireplace gleams and heraldic shields grace the high cornice.
WARTIME
Image:©Antock Bantock
In 1917 Ashton Court Mansion was used as a Red Cross Hospital with £1200 given by Esme for its conversion. Wards were made out of bedrooms and the Long Gallery used for leg cases. The Mansion’s use as a hospital continued after the cessation of war but only neurological and shell shock cases remained. This continued until 1923.
BETWEEN THE WARS AND WORLD WAR II
Image: items laid out for 1947 sale (unknown 1947)
We can only assume that furniture and other possessions were then taken out of storage and reinstated into the Long Gallery as Hector Paterson’s images were taken in between the wars in c1929.
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In the 2nd World War Ashton Court was requisitioned by the War Office as a transit camp for units embarking at Avonmouth. Nissen huts were to the north of the Mansion, and barrage balloons and ack-ack guns were situated on the hillside above the Mansion. Esme Smyth refused to leave. Anton Bantock in his Images of England book says:
‘On Friday evenings, Esme had her wheelchair pushed into the Long Gallery where dances were organised for the officers billeted in the house.’
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Once again after the war was over all of the furniture and possessions were taken out of storage and re-instated in the long Gallery. Esme died in May 1946 and just over a year later all of the contents of the Mansion were sold off.
1950S AND 60S
Image: south front 1960s Bristol Post
Through the 1950s further deterioration occurred, grass grew up on the inside of the Long Gallery windows and rain came in from the roof which had been stripped of lead. In 1959 the Bristol City Council purchased the estate and the mansion.