page_title: Prior Park
section_title: Gardens
hierarchical_section_title: Prior Park / Gardens
caption_attribution_description: English: Palladian Bridge, Prior Park - Bath, England.
context_page_description: Prior Park is a Palladian house, designed by John Wood, the Elder, and built in the 1730s and 1740s for Ralph Allen on a hill overlooking Bath, Somerset, England. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building.
  The house was built to demonstrate the properties of Bath stone as a building material. The design followed work by Andrea Palladio and was influenced by drawings originally made by Colen Campbell for Wanstead House in Essex. The main block had 15 bays and each of the wings 17 bays each. The surrounding parkland had been laid out in 1100 but following the purchase of the land by Allen 11.3 hectares were established as a landscape garden. Features in the garden include a bridge covered by Palladian arches, which is also Grade I listed.
  Following Allen's death the estate passed down through his family. In 1828, Bishop Baines bought it for use as a Roman Catholic College. The house was then extended and a chapel and gymnasium built by Henry Goodridge. The house is now used by Prior Park College and the surrounding parkland owned by the National Trust.
context_section_description: The first park on the site was set out by John of Tours the Bishop of Bath and Wells around 1100, as part of a deer park, and subsequently sold to Humphrey Colles and then Matthew Colhurst. It is set in a small valley with steep sides, from which there are views of the city of Bath. Prior Park's 11.3 hectares (28 acres) landscape garden was laid out by the poet Alexander Pope between the construction of the house and 1764. During 1737, at least 55,200 trees, mostly elm and Scots pine, were planted, along the sides and top of the valley. No trees were planted on the valley floor. Water was channeled into fish ponds at the bottom of the valley.
  Later work, during the 1750s and 1760s, was undertaken by the landscape gardener Capability Brown. This included extending the gardens to the north and removing the central cascade making the combe into a single sweep. The garden, as it was originally laid out, influenced other designers and contributed to defining the style of garden thought of as the English garden in continental Europe.
  The features in the gardens include a Palladian bridge (one of only 4 left in the world), Gothic temple, gravel cabinet, Mrs Allen's Grotto, ice house, lodge and three pools with curtain walls plus a serpentine lake. The Palladian bridge, which is a copy of the one at Wilton House, was built by Richard Jones, and has been designated as a Grade I listed building and Scheduled Ancient Monument. It was repaired in 1936.
  The rusticated stone piers on either side of the main entrance gates are surmounted by entablatures and large ornamental vases, while those at the drive entrance have ornamental carved finials. The porter's lodge was built along with the main house to designs by John Wood the Elder.
  In 1993, the National Trust obtained the park and pleasure grounds. In November 2006, the large-scale restoration project began on the cascade, serpentine lake and Gothic temple in the Wilderness area (as shown in special episode 28 of the Time Team). Extensive planting also took place in 2007. The Palladian Bridge is also featured on the cover of the album Morningrise by Swedish progressive metal band Opeth released in 1996.
caption: The Palladian Bridge
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