Zoological reserve and breeding ground on site of Romantic landscape park, 1814 for Sir John Davis, further landscaping 1907 for Sir Stanley White: Tower in early parkland with 1815 oak avenue; extensive woodlands with now overgrown walks and ruinous summerhouses in picturesque style; remains of water cascade; ornamental ponds. Webb’s Brake water garden with miniature boat house; 1907 rockery and plant collection, part of rockery and statuary removed to Bristol Zoo; model farm; kitchen garden; C19 specimen trees, orchard, pleached hazel walk now abandoned.
There is evidence that the garden and park were laid out by the Maule family of Easton near Bristol, seedsmen, plantsmen, surveyors and landscape architects, James Maule having been brought down from Scotland in 1769 to serve as head gardener and surveyor to William Codrington at nearby Dodington House.(qv)
Estate sold to Bristol Zoo, c1950s, with unfulfilled covenant requiring public display of animals in extensive enclosures.
It became the Wild Place Project and is then the Bristol Zoo Project in 2023
- Text References
White, Sir George: "The story of the Hollywood Tower Estate 1809-1971 - Home to the new Bristol Zoo". 2022
- Associated Buildings
House, stable, wall, kennels and piers (LB II) 1814; clock tower (LB II) mid C19; wall, gate piers, gate and railings (LB II) c1820.