Walk in Bristol
with Richie
Goldney Hall House and Gardens
5 Nearest Attraction
( Clifton Hill entrance )
(243 feet - 1 min walking)
2. Brandon Hill and Cabot Tower
( Jacob's Well Rd entrance )
(0,2 mile - 5 min walking)
(0,3 mile - 6 min walking)
4. Holy Trinity Church , Hotwells
(0,3mile - 7 min walking)
(0,4 mile - 9 min walking)
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Click to the postcode to check the map .
Nearest Public Toilet
The Berkeley (JD Weatherspoons) (Community Toilet Scheme)
15-19 Queens Road, BS8 1QE
OR
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Brandon Hill
(Community Toilet Scheme)
Accessible
Brandon Hill, BS1 5QT
Lower Clifton Hill, Bristol BS8 1BH
Official website:
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2022/april/goldney-garden-tours.html
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Goldney Hall is a self-catered hall of residence in the Clifton area of Bristol, England.
It is one of three in the area providing accommodation for students at the University of Bristol and occupies part of the grounds of Goldney House, built in the 18th century and remodelled in the 1860s.
The house and several garden features are listed structures, and the garden is designated Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
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The Grotto at Goldney Hall.pdf
Richie's opinion :
" I was near to this place, but the garden don't have regular opening times, so I can't visited it.. Yet..but I will do.. :) "
About the Goldney Hall
Goldney House and garden occupy a site of c 1.6ha., located on the brow of Clifton Hill, c 1.5km west of the centre of Bristol.
The northern boundary is formed by Clifton Hill, a public highway.
To the west the registered site is bounded by Goldney Lane, and to the east by Clifton Wood Road, both public roads which descend steep hills to the south.
The southern boundary is formed at the eastern end by a communal garden, on the north side of Randall Road, 200m south of the house, and by a Pennant sandstone rubble wall running west to Goldney Lane along the north side of properties on Ambra Vale East.
The garden runs from the house, southward to a terrace some 100m south of the house, then steeply south towards the suburb of Clifton Wood and Bristol Harbour, over which there are long views south-west to the Avon valley and the hills of Ashton Court, Avon (qv) beyond. Goldney House and garden are surrounded by the Bristol suburb of Clifton.
The gardens can be hired for events and also have specific open days for the public to visit.
HISTORIC GARDEN TOURS BOOKING
The main entrance to the garden is through the porch and hall of Goldney House, to a good view southwards down the main axis of the design towards the terrace.
The much-reduced area of the modern garden is very roughly triangular, and includes most of the 18th century features, with the rotunda and bastion projecting from the south west corner at the end of the terrace.
The central area consists of a yew avenue which leads to the grotto entrance below the great terrace; this runs at right angles to the central axis.
The canal is parallel to the avenue on the east and on an axis south from the orangery.
Further east, beyond a high hedge was probably the original kitchen garden, an orchard and wall fruit.
In the later 20th century it was hoped to plant the section north of the tennis court with plants similar to those grown in Goldney's garden.
This was not really viable and is now called the Old World Garden. South of the tennis court fruit trees have been planted.
From the terrace and bastion there were views across the Avon and towards the city, a prospect commented on by 18th century visitors.
Housing development and the growth of trees now impede most of this.
A paddock slopes steeply down from the terrace to a boundary wall and the area of the 20th century vegetable garden.
The nine residential towers are situated beyond the west walk on former meadow land leased by Goldney to protect the western side of his garden.
The most recent extensions mean that they impinge more than formerly on this walk and the bastion.
In the south east corner is a gardeners' bothy.
Also to the south east, beyond Goldney garden boundary, are a mid-18th centuy stable block and the once handsome early 18th century Clifton Wood House, owned as part of the Goldney estate for some 250 years, but not part of Goldney garden.
Goldney grounds are maintained by University of Bristol gardeners.
In January 1984 the grotto was vandalised, shells and 'Bristol diamonds' being broken off.
Restoration and other repair work was carried out by Simon Verity and Diana Reynell, experts in grotto restoration.
History
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The Goldney family first came to Bristol in 1637 when Thomas Goldney I, son of a prosperous clothier, was apprenticed to a Bristol grocer.
After leasing Goldney House in 1694, his son Thomas Goldney II bought it in 1705.
In the late 17th century, Clifton was a small village of some 200 inhabitants, separate from the city of Bristol, which was beginning to attract city dwellers in search of cleaner surroundings.
Thomas Goldney II was a successful Quaker businessman with investments in trade and in Abraham Darby's iron works at Coalbrookdale.
In the 1720s the house was partly rebuilt and extended.
When Thomas Goldney II died in 1731 his son Thomas Goldney III continued the family business.
In 1732 Thomas Goldney began to expand the estate by buying adjacent property, a house and land to the east.
After a visit to the garden in 1735 a visitor described it as being 'very fine with Walks, Greens, Waterworks, Summer Houses etc there were many Lemons and Orange Trees with fruit on them'.
This probably describes the garden much as it was when Thomas Goldney inherited the estate.
In 1736 he began to keep a garden note book and started a programme of design and development of the garden, which continued until his death in 1768.
He was much helped by his head gardener, Adam Sixsmith. The garden and grotto were much visited in Goldney's time.
From 1768, the property was inherited in turn by Thomas's remaining three siblings - Hannah, Gabriel and Ann.
Then for some 60 years after Ann's death in 1794 the house was occupied by their Goldney cousins from Chippenham.
In 1857 some of the outer areas of the estate were sold.
New roads and Victorian villas were built in the Clifton Wood area - Randall Road and Glentworth Road.
Later, to the west and the south the Ambra Vale districts and Goldney Road and Avenue were laid out.
In 1864 the house and estate were bought by Lewis Fry of the local Quaker family.
He engaged Alfred Waterhouse to alter the house.
After Lewis Fry's death in 1921 George Wills, whose family were supporters of the University of Bristol, bought the house, intending that it should become a university hall of residence for men students. In 1909 the nearby Clifton Hill House had been opened for women students.
However, this scheme was not approved, and the house was let for 10 years.
In 1932 his daughter, Margaret, and her husband Ellison Eberle bought the house from trustees and began an extensive restoration plan. Besides work on the new house, there was also work on the orangery, canal and grotto.
Paths were also re-laid and additional greenhouses were built.
In 1956, after Mrs Eberle's death, the house and garden were sold to Bristol University and became an annexe to Clifton Hill House.
In 1969 the residential towers for 185 men and women students were built and Goldney was established as an independent hall of residence.
Some 30 years later, this has been remodelled and extended in the mid-1990s.
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