Coombe House

This was the home of John Graves Livingston, chairman of the Festiniog Railway Company. It was in Canford Lane, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol. He lived there from at least 1877 until 1883. The house was old. It was present on the 1840 tithe map and survived until at least 1949 although by then modern 3 bedroom semi-detached houses had begun to be built in its grounds. The freehold seems to have been owned by Bristol City Council who built the modern police houses on the land. Coombe House was demolished soon after and a council old peoples home built in the 1960s or 70s. This in turn was demolished circa 2020. The site was in 2023 empty but surrounded by a secure hoarding which still has a notice on it saying "DANGER Demolition in Progress". By October 2024 a group of travellers seemed to have moved in and were secure behind the hoarding. Presumably they removed and replaced the lock on the gate.

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  Coombe House from near the confluence of Hazel Brook and the River Trym. Photo credit: Vaughan Collection of Bristol Archives. Published by Viner & Co., Bath as a postcard. Undated.
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  Coombe House site taken from roughly the same location on 19/2/2023.

Johnson, in his article, suggests that here Livingston lived in retirement with his wife Henrietta. They had no children. It was an attractive rural location near to Coombe Dingle and a desirable place to live before the encroachment of Bristol's suburbs. The property was leasehold. He had 5 servants and a gardener who lived in the lodge with his family. The house was charmingly situated looking out from a large bay window across the valley of the River Trym to the North West towards Kings Weston Down. It stood on the crest of the small gentle bluff up from the river bank. It was notable enough for a postcard of it to be published. To the back of the house was Canford Lane and a walk of about 0.7 miles to the ancient village of Westbury-on-Trym or via Coombe Lane the 2.2 miles to Blackboy Hill where the horse tram from Bristol had reached by Livingston's time.

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  Coombe House seen from beside the Hazel Brook. Picture credit: Loxton Collection of Bristol Reference Library. Undated but probably early 20th century.

When he left to move to Clifton the contents were sold in March 1884. The interior items sold included oak library furniture, books, rare framed prints, an oak sideboard and suite, Axminster carpet, tapestry curtains, drawing room suite, bedsteads, bedding, and marble top hall table. Outside items were orchids, ferns, and other plants, from the hot house,and greenhouses, a modern landau, dairy utensils, mowing machine and various carts. The livestock included a bay horse with harness, two Alderney cows, one in calf, a donkey and 40 fowl. The donkey will have reminded him of home in Ireland.

Johnson continues:

"Whilst Living at Coombe House, Livingston had exhibited fruit and flowers at local shows, winning mostly minor prizes for grapes, melons, cherries, hollyhocks, and primulas, although in 1880 and 1881 he was awarded first prize for chrysanthemums at a show in Bath."

The 1879/82 Ordnance Survey map published in Johnson's article shows an enclosure beside the drive from the lodge to the house which was clearly a garden. There are four glasshouses abutting its perimeter which was probably a wall with the glasshouses as lean-tos. The biggest glasshouse was outside the wall on the North side and was undoubtedly the hothouse. Constructing it on that side of the wall will have left space along the South side of the wall for espalier fruit trees etc. There was also along this North Wall two facing lines of out houses which will have accommodated the livestock, carts, landau and the boiler for the hothouse.

On the ground, opposite where the entrance door to the old main house must have been, there now resides a stone apple crusher for cider making. Presumably one of the outhouses was a cider house. This system is quite old, pre-dating ‘scratters’, probably 16th - 18th century or it could be even earlier. It would normally be raised up about 3 feet on blocks, and there were somtimes a low spot in the edge where a tub would be placed to collect juice. This does not seem to be the case with this example. There would be a stone like a small millstone running on edge around the circular trough with a bar through its middle to a pin set in the middle of the larger stone. </ref>Bristol City Council https://maps.bristol.gov.uk/kyp/?edition=</ref> On the Know Your Place web site it is erroneously called a stone corn grinder. So we can be confident Livingston had enough apple trees to brew his own cider which he no doubt took pleasure in. The heavy stone was presumably moved by the builders of the 1950s houses from the cider house to a place where it would not be in the way. Livingston's cider making interest could date back to his early life for he was born, like his brother Livingston before him, in Armagh. In Ireland Armagh is known as the "Orchard County".

This, then, was the scene from which Livingston would have set off to the meetings of the FR Company Board which he chaired. In his time the Board usually met in London. Contrast his lifestyle with that of the more humble servants of the Ffestiniog Railway Company and the labourers in the quarries that won the slate that sustained them all.

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  The end wall of the outhouse closest to Coombe House and the corner with the North Wall of the garden on the left. 11/2/2023.
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  The old North wall of Coombe House walled garden with signs of where outhouses butted on to it. The garden was the other side - an area now occupied by (roughly) 1950s houses. 11/2/2023.
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  Close up of the edge of the apple crusher which lies near the old drive opposite the two glasshouses on Johnson's OS map. 11/2/2023.
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  The apple crusher partially cleared of ivy. Diameter about 3.5 metres. 11/2/2023.
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  The brass knocker on the Lodge of Coombe House.

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  The map of Coombe House in Peter Johnson's article. The bottom right hand corner shows the lodge beside Canford Lane.
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  The lodge of Coombe House in which the gardener and his family lived. It is now 299 Canford Lane, Westbury-on-Trym.