Grove Park, Weston-super-Mare, England

Grove House became the property of the Pigott family in 1696. The park was their private garden.

John Hugh Pigott made alterations to both the house and garden. In January 1805 the walls around the field and orchard were started, and in 1835 and in the 1840s extensions were built onto the house. ‘John Hugh Smyth-Pigott (1793-1853) not only filled the Grove and the family home with fine paintings, sculptures, books and curiosities but also planted out Weston Woods. The trees of the Grove stretched farther north than the present park boundary to merge with the new woods on the Pigott lands on the hill. Although intended as a game reserve, the woods should also be seen as part of the landscaping movement in the county during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries' (Evans, 1980).

When Strawberry Hill, Horace Walpole's country house near Twickenham was sold, John Hugh Smyth-Pigott bought a collection of statues. Two of these can be seen beside the pond in Grove Park.

John's grandson, Cecil Hugh Smyth-Pigott was the last to make the Grove his permanent home.

The Corporation's works of 1890 included putting in a bandstand (costing £135), urinals, paths and seats, and the amalgamation of Quarry Road. This all cost £1,095. The ponds at the rockery are built over the site of a small quarry and the road around it was re-routed. The park was officially opened on June 20^th, 1891.

After Cecil Hugh Smyth-Pigott's death in 1893 the town, having already acquired the park, took over the house and used it for various purposes. First it was a library, then a cafe and then a private house.

On 4th January, 1941, the house was bombed and all the old part destroyed. The ruin was demolished in 1952 and was replaced in 1958 by a modern bungalow. Since the local government reorganisation in 1974 the house is used by Weston's mayor and Charter Trustees as a Mayor's Parlour.

The gates at Connaught Place are in memory of Mr. W.H. Norton, founder member of Weston-Super-Mare and District Allotments and Gardens Association. Mr. Norton died in November 1969 aged 81.

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.  

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

In the early 19th century Weston was a small village standing in sand dunes on the Bristol Channel coast. Two of the cottages in the village served as rural retreats for landowners with seats elsewhere: the Smyth-Piggotts of Brockley Hall, and the Reverend Leeves, vicar of Wrington.

In 1810 the Smyth-Piggotts' steward, Richard Parlsey, secured the enclosure of Weston, and the same year, in partnership with John Cox of Brockley, opened a hotel in the village. After a tentative start, the resort developed steadily in the 1820s, with a coach connection to Bristol being established in 1814, and the first guidebook for visitors, emphasising the town's rural simplicity, in contrast to the more sophisticated pleasures of Bath or Brighton (Lambert 1998), appearing in 1822. In the 1820s extensive tree-planting was undertaken by John Hugh Smyth-Piggott on the hill to the north of the town, walks and drives were laid out, and villas were constructed on the lower slopes. Some schemes such as Royal Crescent (about 1847) and Ellenborough Crescent (1855) incorporated areas of communal private pleasure grounds, while commercial pleasure grounds were opened at Flagstaff Hill (later Prince Consort Gardens) and the Enclosure, Madeira Road. A seafront walk was laid out in 1826, but in the mid 19th century the only area of public open space was the cemetery, laid out in 1856.

Pressure for the provision of further public gardens was resisted by the Board of Commissioners until the 1880s, when economic conditions forced the Smyth-Piggott estate and other developers gradually to sell or lease land to the town for the provision of parks. In this way Grove Park was acquired for the town in 1890.

In 1804 a house known as The Grove was the home of the Reverend Wadham Piggott, curate of Weston, whose family had owned the manor of Weston since 1696. In the early 19th century the Reverend Piggott developed The Grove as a seaside retreat, describing improvements to the grounds in a letter to the Bristol artist, George Cumberland in 1805. The Enclosure award of 1810 enabled Piggott to create a small park which is shown with lawns, shrubbery, and a sweeping drive in an engraving of 1847 by Whereat. Immediately around the house Piggott constructed terraced gardens which are shown in a lithograph of 1829 by John Rutter.

In 1815 the Reverend Piggott's niece and heiress married John Hugh Smyth (1792-1853) of Aston Court, who assumed the name Smyth-Piggott and took up residence at The Grove. A cultured art collector, J H Smyth-Piggott improved the grounds at The Grove, building an observatory and installing a collection of sixteen stone busts bought from the sale of Horace Walpole's collection at Strawberry Hill, Twickenham. The estate passed to J H Smyth-Piggott's eldest son, John Hugh Wadham Smyth-Piggott in 1862, and to his grandson, Cecil Hugh Smyth-Piggott in the early 1880s.

C H Smyth-Piggott faced a decline in income from the development of Weston-super-Mare, and in 1889 decided to consolidate his estate at Brockley Park, offering The Grove and adjacent glebe land for sale for development. This was strongly opposed by a parishioners' meeting and by the Weston Gazette. Despite some public opposition, the Board of Commissioners entered into negotiations with Smyth-Piggott which resulted in the acquisition of The Grove for the town at an annual rent of £300.

In April 1890 a Local Government Board loan of £2000 was sought towards the cost of converting the private pleasure grounds into a public park. This work was undertaken by the Town Surveyor, A E Collins, and was completed by 20 June 1891 when Grove Park was opened to the public as the town's premier public park. New features included a bandstand, rockeries, a refreshment room in the former manor house, a pavilion, and extensive floral displays. In 1922 a war memorial and associated formal gardens were constructed in the park, while the following year a large glass-roofed pavilion was built at the southern end of the park. This structure was destroyed by incendiary bombs in 1941, while The Grove was also damaged and subsequently demolished, leaving only the 19th century coach house. During the 1930s further formal features were introduced into the park, while in the late 20th century glasshouses on the terraced gardens south of Grove House were replaced by a rose garden, and a car park was constructed on the site of the 1923 pavilion.

Today (2001) Grove Park remains in municipal ownership.