Address: Wills Hall, Parrys Lane, Bristol, BS9 1AE
Located in Stoke Bishop on the edge of The Bristol Downs. The building known as Wills Hall to generations of its young residents was originally called “Downside House.” Built in the Strawberry Hill Gothic style, in the 1830s the first historical reference to it as a family house is from the 1841 Tithe Map. The estate was acquired by the Georges, a well-to-do family of brewers, Georges and Co, with a prominent presence in Bristol society. The estate comprised of a large wooded area, used for deer hunting and a farm. Enclosed gardens laid out in a formal style of Henry Wise and George London. Alfred George (1792-1878) as well as building Downside House, also commissioned the elegant entrance driveway from Parry’s Lane that you see today and the more formal second drive on Hollybush Lane.
William Edwards George ((1842-1921), Alfred’s son continued to landscape the estate upon his father’s death in 1871. The first edition of Ordnance Survey 1880-81 illustrated the changes he made, transforming the agricultural landscape into a nineteenth century country estate with the features of that era. Today, evidence of these features still remains. Among others, you can just make out where the kitchen garden and its glasshouses once stood, overlooking the rectangular quartered garden.
After William’s death in 1921 the estate was purchased by Henry Herbert Wills who gave it to the University. George Wills commissioned the design of the quad based on those seen at Oxford, originally the design featured a pool in the centre. The design was changed, and the pool removed as it was thought it would encourage student ‘dunkings.’
Today’s garden explorers continue to be watched over by the same trees that were planted in that Victorian era, examples of which can be found lining the Parry’s Lane Drive and include the golden Irish yew, Taxus baccata ‘Fastigiata aureomarginata; Wellingtonia, Sequoiadendron giganteum and the California redwood, Sequoia sempervirens.
