Prior Park, Bath, England

The main visual impact of Prior Park derives from its natural situation. The house, a huge Palladian mansion, with its accompanying arcades, offices and pavilions, stretches for 1000 feet across the upper level of the ground, and looks north over Widcombe Vale towards the City of Bath. The garden is designed to take advantage of this position, and woodlands have been created on either side of the valley, leaving the centre open. The fishponds at the bottom of the valley are graced by a Palladian bridge, which acts as a focus for the eye. In the 18^th century tradition, the sights around Bath are an integral feature of the view, and there is no sense of detachment between the estate and the surrounding landscape.

The woods immediately to the north-west of the house conceal the serpentine walk with the Sham Bridge and Pope's Grotto. The Priory (originally the Gardener's house) is situated in the woods to the north-east and the gymnasium in Rainbow Woods to the south-east.

The entrances to the site are from Ralph Allen Drive, from North Road or via the footpaths from Widcombe across National Trust land to the north-east. There are also several minor points of access.

Despite many alterations and changes over the years, Prior Park retains the elegance, grace and tranquillity that made it famous in the 18th century.

Although some of the central features of the estate at Prior Park have survived, the historic garden is generally in a state of neglect. The woodland around the main house, and on the east and west slopes of the estate, need much attention, as does the open grassland between the house and the Palladian Bridge. Some of the garden buildings are still used, and are kept in a good state of repair, but others are decaying and crumbling. Several important garden buildings have been moved or demolished over time.

Some piecemeal restoration work has been started at Prior Park. Many trees have recently been planted by Avon Environmental Improvements, and a Manpower Services team has uncovered several stone culverts that were once a functional part of the garden. However, Prior Park is a large estate of great historical significance, and if it is to be restored to its former glory it will require an overall management scheme. This will necessitate sufficient resources to carry out an integrated plan that will re-establish harmony between the buildings and the landscape.

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

A landscape park, laid out in the 18th century with advice from Alexander Pope and Lancelot Brown, around a country house.
 

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Prior Park is situated on the edge of Combe Down, a sandstone ridge that runs east/west, about 2 kilometres south of Bath. The house is located prominently, designed both to see and be seen from the city. The surviving historic landscape comprises some 22 hectares, and is divided between former parkland, now playing fields, to the south of the house, and the steeply sloping combe to the north, which runs down from the house to three fishponds in Widcombe at the northern extremity of the landscape.

To the west the park is bounded by Ralph Allen Drive, a public highway, formerly a private carriage drive to the house, with a wall aboutt 1.5 metres high. To the south it is bounded by a stone wall about 4.5 metres high along the A3062. The eastern boundary follows the edge of the Free Fields, around the north side of The Priory, then follows the edge of the flanking woods of the combe northwards to the north end of the ponds.

Few trees survive of Allen's extensive planting of pines over the neighbouring downs. The ridings he laid out around his extensive holdings on Combe Down totalled some 10 miles (about 16 kilometres) in length, but only a few fragments have survived 20th century building development. A rustic bridge 250 metres south-west of the house, which stands over the lane now known aa Pope's Walk, used to carry one such drive west from the house. Some 2 kilometres to the north-east, Sham Castle (1762, listed grade II*) was built as an eyecatcher from Allen's town house in Bath.

The setting is dominated by the unspoilt view between the flanking woods to the Palladian Bridge and north over Bath.

REFERENCES

Country Life, 165 (22 March 1979), pp 873-6

N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: North Somerset and Bristol (1958), pp 113-15

G Clarke, Prior Park: a compleat landscape (1987)

Prior Park Survey, (Land Use Consultants 1993)

T Mowl, Palladian Bridges: Prior Park and the Whig connection (1993)

Prior Park, guidebook, (National Trust 1996)

M Chapman, A guide to the Estates of Ralph Allen around Bath (1996)

J Bond, Somerset Parks and Gardens: a landscape history (1998)

Prior Park Landscape Garden: Conservation Plan, (National Trust 2002)

Description written: October 2002

Amended: July 2003

Edited: September 2003