Kings Weston
Members of the STONE-WORK team visited Kings Weston, Bristol on the 26 July 2024. The house, designed by Sir John Vanbrugh and built between 1712 –19 employs local Kingsweston Stone in the ashlar walling on all four facades.
Kingsweston Stone or Penpole Stone is a member of the Dolomotic conglomerate. According to the Historic England guide to ‘Bristol, Bath and Surrounding Areas, Building Stones of England’:
The occurrence of Penpole Stone is confined to the Kingsweston area of Shirehampton, Bristol. It is an attractive, non-conglomeratic, fine-grained variety of dolomitic conglomerate, which is yellowish in colour and tinged pink. It is a hard resistant stone, and its fine grain size means it can be cut into fine ashlar blocks.[1]
Penpole Stone, which was quarried at Penpole wood, on the north side of the park at Kings Weston varies much in terms of colour, ranging from light yellow to ochre with orange to pinkish-red marbling in places. The stone also varies in terms of texture from a conglomerate composed of more-or-less equally sized pebbles to a cross-bedded, finer grained, more sandy variety, with fewer and smaller pebbles. Although some replacement patching is evident the stonework is in good repair.
Due to its hard resistant nature Penpole Stone was not suitable for the carved detail and a lighter fine-grained stone, possibly Dundry Stone, from south Bristol, was employed in the capitals, entablature and pediment.[2]
[1] Historic England. ‘Bristol, Bath and Surrounding Area. Building Stones of England’. Swindon: Historic England, 2023, 19.