Why The Fortunes Of Kings Weston House Changed Between 1700 And The Present Day

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Why The Fortunes Of Kings Weston House Changed Between 1700 And The Present Day

Kings Weston House was built on the side of a ridge probably with

idyllic pastoral views (as was the fashion in the 1700's). Kings

Weston House was probably built on this site because of those views,

it was surrounded by countryside with a few grazing cattle's of sheep

and most likely farmland visible, but the main view from the house was

the River Severn and the rolling green hills of Wales visible on the

other side. These views made it the perfect country house for a

wealthy family. Today the view from the house is very different, you

can see the built up council estates of Sea Mills and Lawrence Weston.

Where in the 1700s you used to be able to look towards the River

Severn and see countryside, today you see Avonmouth docks and the

village of Avonmouth which has grown around the docks which is part of

Bristol.

On the site of the current house there used to be a Tudor mansion and

the name Kings Weston came from the fact that it was a crown property.

It was owned by Henry the Second who gave it to Robert Fitlzharding,

the ancestor of the Berkeley family. He sold it in Queen Elizabeth's

reign to Sir Edward Wintour, who then sold it to Alderman Humphrey

Hooke of Bristol, a wealthy trade's man. Then Sir Robert Southwell

bought Kings Weston from hookes son in 1679. Sir Robert Southwell was

the sectary of state for Ireland. On his death his son Edward

Southwell followed in his footsteps and became sectary of state of

Ireland and later on became a member of Rye in 1707. As Sir Edward

Southwell had inherited the estate of Kings Weston it was probably not

t...

... middle of paper ...

...th duties' had to be

paid (today called inheritance tax), which often meant the house or

land had to be sold to pay the tax.

During and after the First World War more jobs became available so no

one wanted to work as servants which a house like Kings Weston needs

to run, so because of the built up industrial areas around the house

and the lack of people to work there no one wanted the house.

Kings Weston house was old and damp, it was old fashioned, the roof

was leaking and it had wood worm. It was too large and expensive to

run so the grounds were sold for the building of houses in the 1920s

when Sea Mills and Shirehampton became council estates.

All of this added up to the decline of Kings Weston House, in the end

some one bought the house, renovated it and turned it into a

conference centre and restaurant.

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