Standing watch over Goldney Garden in Hotwells, you’ll find the great Greek hero Hercules. This Grade II* listed statue has stood here since, at least, 1748. Mysteriously predating everything else on the grounds. But this is only the tip of the iceberg for the wonder and mystery you can discover in these historic gardens.
Normally closed to the public, tours of Goldney Gardens will be made available throughout the summer. So you can finally learn all its secrets. The tour, which will last approximately 1.5 hours, with dates from April to September, will provide an in-depth look at the history of the house and review the garden. While the main house, with sights overlooking the city centre of Bristol and Brandon Hill, cannot be accessed. Goldney Gardens and all its encompassing 10 acres will be explorable.
Tour guide Angela Nutbrown, who has extensive knowledge of Bristol’s history and an MA in Garden History, will lead visitors around the historic garden’s five follies and other features. These include Hercules himself, the Rotunda, the towering Gothic Tower, an ornamental canal, the mock bastion, the site of the original flag garden, and its heritage orchard.
But the biggest treasure to find here is Goldney Grotto. Built over 27 years, it is one of the ‘finest surviving examples of an eighteenth-century grotto in Britain’. And it is a dazzling sight to behold. Inside the Goldney Grotto is decorated with rare shells and Bristol Diamonds (quartz crystals found in the Avon Gorge).
Consisting of several chambers, divided by encrusted pillars, in the central chamber you’ll bump into a life-sized stone lion, with a lioness and lion’s den behind. At the end of the chamber is sat The River God, overlooking a cascaded rock pool with giant clams. While the roof is built from Bath stone with pseudo-stalactites hanging from it.
To learn more about these historic garden tours of Goldney Gardens head here.