Red Lodge Museum, Bristol facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Red Lodge Museum |
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Red Lodge
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| General information | |
| Town or city | Park Row, Bristol BS1 5LJ |
| Country | England |
| Coordinates | 51°27′20″N 2°35′58″W / 51.455556°N 2.599583°W |
| Completed | 1580 |
| Client | John Yonge |
The Red Lodge Museum is a fascinating historic house museum in Bristol, England. It's a special place where you can step back in time! The first part of the building was started around 1579–1580. This was during the Tudor and Elizabethan times.
Over the years, more parts were added, especially in the 1730s and early 1800s. Today, the Red Lodge is a free museum. It is looked after by the Bristol City Council. You can also find information about the artworks inside on the Art UK website.
Contents
A Quick Look at History
Building the Great House
The Red Lodge was first built as part of a much larger estate. This estate belonged to a grand home called "ye Great House of St. Augustine's Back." Sir John Young built the Great House in 1568. He was a wealthy merchant and worked for kings and queens like Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.
The Red Lodge was probably used as a special guest house. It was a place where the Young family could entertain their visitors. They would walk their guests through beautiful gardens and orchards. Then, they would enjoy meals and drinks at the Red Lodge.
Sir John Young passed away in 1589. His wife, Dame Joan, finished the Red Lodge in 1590. Dame Joan came from an important family in Somerset and Devon. Her brother, Nicholas Wadham, helped start Wadham College, Oxford. Queen Elizabeth I even stayed with the Youngs in 1574. The family's family symbols are carved above the entrance to the Great Oak Room.
After Sir John and Dame Joan, their son Robert Young inherited everything. But Robert spent his money quickly. He had to give the Red Lodge to his half-brother, Nicholas Strangways. By 1595, the Red Lodge was rented out to different people. It became a separate home from the Great House.
The Henley Family's Changes
In the 1730s, John and Mary Henley bought the Red Lodge. They made big changes to the north side of the building. They made it twice as big! They added large Georgian windows. They also changed the roof style. This gave the building a full second floor.
The Henleys updated some rooms, like the Reception Room. They also partly changed the parlour. But they left the Great Oak Room, Small Oak Room, and Bedroom mostly untouched. These rooms still had their rich Tudor decorations.
Sadly, John Henley died before the changes were finished. Mary Henley couldn't inherit the house because they had no children. John's will said Mary could live in the Red Lodge for one month each year. This meant the house couldn't be rented out or sold easily.
Short-Term Renters
After the Henleys, doctors rented the Red Lodge. They worked at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. One famous renter was James Cowles Pritchard. He wrote important books about human history. In the 1800s, the current entrance from Park Row was added. More rooms were also built on the east side.
Mary Carpenter and the Girls' School
In 1854, Lady Byron bought the Red Lodge. She used money from Lord Byron to do this. She gave the building to Mary Carpenter to start a school. Mary Carpenter was a passionate reformer. She opened the very first Girls' Reformatory at the Red Lodge.
This school was for poor girls. Mary Carpenter wanted to help them learn and grow. This was very different from the harsh workhouses and prisons of the Victorian era. The Red Lodge was a reform school until 1917. Mary Carpenter worked hard to help children in need. She traveled the world to research how to improve their lives.
Becoming a Museum
In 1919, James Fuller Eberle saved the Red Lodge. He bought it to stop its historic parts from being sold off. He bought it for the Bristol 1904 Arts society and the Bristol Corporation. The arts society found it hard to look after the whole building. So, a new building was built in the garden in 1920. The old laundry became their studio.
The Tudor, Georgian, and Victorian parts of the Red Lodge went to the corporation. This later became the Bristol City Council. The Council fixed up the building in 1920 and again in 1956. Then, they opened the Red Lodge as a museum.
Since then, it has been part of the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery. Other museums like The Georgian House Museum and Blaise Castle House Museum are also part of this group. The museum plans to restore more rooms and make the garden safer for visitors.
The Rooms of the Red Lodge
The Great Oak Room
The Great Oak Room is truly special. It still has its original oak wood panels. It also has a beautiful plaster ceiling and a unique "double-decker" fireplace. It's considered one of the best rooms in the West Country. You enter through an oak porch. Above the porch, you can see the Young and Wadham family symbols carved into the wood. The only changes are the larger Georgian windows. These windows give you a great view of the knot garden.
The Small Oak Room and Bedroom
The Small Oak Room and Bedroom were built at the same time as the Great Oak Room. But they have less fancy wood panels. The Bedroom has a plaster ceiling with a design that looks like the knot garden outside. In Tudor times, rooms were often arranged from public to private. So, the Great Oak Room was for guests. The Small Oak Room and Bedroom were likely more private spaces, perhaps for sleeping or quiet activities.
The Print Room
The Print Room was added in the 1700s. The museum has made it look like a typical Print Room from that time. You can see a collection of tiles around the fireplace. There are also examples of marquetry (wood inlay) and parquetry (wood patterns) in the furniture. A tall clock with a "japanned" finish shows the fashion of the early 1700s.
The Mary Carpenter Room
The Mary Carpenter Room tells the story of the Red Lodge as a school. You can see a painting of Mary Carpenter with her first student. There's also a photo of Mary Carpenter herself. Her Broadwood piano, bought in 1845, is also in this room.
The Grand Staircase
The large Georgian staircase and landing are impressive. They have portraits of important people connected to the house. These include John and Mary Henley. The staircase was designed with many windows. A grand chandelier would have lit up Mary Henley and her guests as they went to the Reception Room.
The New Oak Room and the Well
The New Oak Room was changed a lot in the 1800s. In 1965, the museum used old parts from other places to decorate it. The wood panels are from before the 1700s. They came from a church called St Michael-on-the-Mount. The fireplace came from Ashley Down House.
The Second Floor
The Tudor attic used to have pointed gables. The Henley family extended it to become a full-height second floor.
Cool Things to See
Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I
You can see a portrait of Queen Elizabeth I in the Great Oak Room. Experts have recently said it's an original painting from the late 1500s.
Speke Chair/Table
In the Great Oak Room, there's a special chair. Its back folds down to become a table-top! Furniture that could be used in different ways was common in the Tudor period. The Speke family was an important family from Somerset.
Portrait of Florence Smyth and her black 'Page'
In the Small Oak Room, there's a portrait of Florence Smyth. She is shown with a young black boy, called a 'page'. We don't know much about the boy in the painting. We can't say if he was a servant or a friend. If he was a slave, it might be the earliest painting of a slave in the UK.
Mary Carpenter's Piano
The piano in the Mary Carpenter Room is the original Broadwood piano. Mary Carpenter bought it in 1845. The fabric panel on the front of a Broadwood piano is usually silk. So, it's possible the girls at the school worked on the fabric and embroidery.
18th-Century Spinet
The spinet (a type of small piano) in the Print Room was made in 1702. It has been at the Red Lodge since at least 1935. The museum and the "Bristol Savages" (an arts society) tune it every year. They even use it for their special events!
Walnut Bureau with Hidden Spots
The Walnut Bureau and shelves in the Reception Room have many secret compartments. Can you imagine hiding things in them?
The Skinner Chair
The Skinner Chair in the Parlour was carved in the late 1600s. It was made for Bishop Robert Skinner. The carving on the chair tells the story of Actaeon the Hunter. He angered the goddess Artemis. As punishment, he was turned into a deer and attacked by his own hunting dogs.
The back of the chair also shows the Skinner family symbols. These same symbols are on Bishop Skinner's grave. This chair has been used on two royal occasions. Prince Albert sat on it in 1843. He was in Bristol to launch the famous ship, the SS Great Britain. Edward VII also sat on it in 1908.
The Knot Garden
The garden you see from the Parlour and Great Oak Room is a modern version of an Elizabethan Knot Garden. It was created in the 1980s. The box hedge 'knot' design is copied from the ceiling in the Bedroom! Herbs and flowers are mixed together, just like they were in the 1630s. All the plants would have been common in gardens of that time. The wooden trellis design comes from a French design from the 1600s.
Red Lodge Today
Art and Performances
The Red Lodge Museum is still a busy place today. In 2006, the museum hosted a modern sculpture exhibition. Artists created works that fit with the old building.
The Ithaca Axis theatre group performed a play there. Parts of the play took place in the Great Oak Room and the garden. In 2013, Galliard Films made an online video about the history of the Red Lodge.
In 2016, the Red Lodge was used in a BBC Four TV show. It was a documentary about Queen Elizabeth I. You could see shots of the Reception Room, Great Oak Room, and knot garden.
In 2020, a local poet named Emma Williams wrote poems about the Red Lodge. Her project, "The Wicked Girls of Red Lodge," used old records. It helped imagine what life was like for the girls at the Victorian Reform school.
See also
