‘It was like Indiana Jones – finding the lost stone’

It’s fair to say it doesn’t look like much: a mossy block in the grounds of Down View House, just off Ashley Down Road. Toppled on its side like a grave and half-sunk over time, the only clue about the importance of this chamfered chunk of stone is a name carved onto one face. The wind and water have almost worn it away, but you can trace it with your finger: Ashley Grange.

Ashley Grange was once the home of WG Grace. He was born in Downend in 1848 and claims to have first picked up a cricket bat at the age of two. His first-class career lasted from 1865 to 1908, and he played Test cricket for England for 19 years, scoring England’s first ever Test century.

Grace indelibly shaped the modern game. A plaque in his honour at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London calls him “the great cricketer”.

In the 1890s Grace purchased a grand villa called Ashley Grange on Ashley Down Road. He wanted to be closer to Gloucestershire County Cricket Club (GCCC), which his father had established.

“It was the Grace family who got the GCCC up and running,” says Roger Gibbons, current president of the club. “His father, Dr Henry Mills, was the patriarch. Of the five Grace sons, three played regularly for Gloucestershire, including WG. At the height of his fame, he was reckoned to be the third best known person in England after Queen Victoria and Gladstone, the Prime Minister. That’s the stature of the man.”

There are few visible reminders left of Grace’s connection to Ashley Down. Grace’s blue plaque sits on his former home in Clifton’s Victoria Square, and it was only in summer 2021 that GCCC unveiled a bronze bust of Grace at the entrance to the Bristol Pavilion. Ashley Grange was demolished in 1936 and is now the site of houses on Wathen Road, near Sefton Park Infants and Junior’s School.

But a rumour persisted that one of its grand gateposts had survived. It was like something you might read on a treasure map.

“A local historian has written of one small relic, the name of the house ‘on a block of stone near the base of a silver birch tree’,” Anthony Meredith wrote in his 2015 book about Grace. “But, if it still survives, it frustratingly eluded us.”

The stone was rediscovered in the grounds of Down View House. Photo by Jess Connett

Matt Redmond has lived in Ashley Down for some 25 years. Having been brought up on Merseyside, he began looking into the history of how Sefton Park Road came to be named after a park in Liverpool and wrote it up on his blog.

“I couldn’t find any information, so I asked people on Twitter one day,” Matt says. “Someone said it might be a connection with WG Grace. I knew he lived in the area but I hadn’t known that much about him. He’s a big name from the past but I didn’t really think much of it.”

Matt’s research led him to look further into the life of Grace, and to the cryptic description of the stone lying near a tree. “I thought it was quite interesting. I started looking [where Ashley Grange had stood], around the backs of the garages and in the school grounds. I couldn’t find it – I gave up and forgot about it a bit.”

But Matt felt it was important to find: “It’s the last connection to WG Grace’s home in Ashley Down because his house has completely disappeared. You see on all the old maps where his villa used to be, but it’s just a map. To find a big lump of stone, you think: ‘He really was here.’”

Around four months later, Matt was walking on the opposite side of Ashley Down Road to where Ashley Grange once stood. He turned down Stoney Lane, a potholed lane that becomes a steep footpath, roughly equidistant from Grace’s former house and the cricket ground. Thick undergrowth had been cut back, revealing a large block of stone tipped on its side.

“It looked like it had been there for ages. I hopped up onto the wall and looked at it, and I could just see the wording – Ashley Grange. I thought, ‘brilliant!’ – it was like Indiana Jones – finding the lost stone.”

Grace is commemorated at the cricket club his father helped to found. Photo by Jess Connett

When Roger Gibbons was a schoolboy in the 1950s, he regularly went to watch Gloucestershire County Cricket Club (GCCC) play at their Nevil Road home. Since the late 1990s he has been involved in the club’s regional committee and executive board, and as well as being the club’s president he is a trustee of the GCCC Heritage Trust.

“I love cricket for social side and the fun, but I’ve always been interested in history – I’ll come back as a social historian in another life,” he says.

He found Matt’s discovery through a cricket fans’ Facebook page. “I was delighted it had been found. Very pleased. It confirmed a lot of people’s thoughts that it still did exist, and to see a photo of it, albeit in the state it’s in – for something like that to reappear 70, 80 years on – is lovely. The Grace connection is very important for the club.”

Roger spoke to the club to see if they would be willing to take the stone, displaying it for all to see and preserving it from the weather. They were “more than happy” Roger says: “It’ll be another memory of him and his connection with the locality. Ashley Grange was his last home in Bristol before the family moved to London. Though, we haven’t finally decided where it’s going to go. I’m told it weighs about a ton.”

Ashley Grange is shown on an OS Map from 1888. Image courtesey of Know Your Place

If finding the stone was difficult, it wasn’t a patch on how hard it would prove to move it less than half a mile to the cricket ground. Bristol City Council readily agreed to let Matt move the stone from their property but, ten months on, his efforts have so far been in vain.

Matt contacted a stonemason who thought they might be able to move it with manpower. But when he saw the size of the solid gatepost, he had to bow out. “Stone can become quite brittle, so you want to move it with someone who knows what they’re doing,” Matt says. “You just wouldn’t make a piece of stone that size any more. It literally weighs a ton.”

His next attempt was a crane company. But with Stoney Lane the only access point to where the stone is now, the company said it would be impossible.

“If it wasn’t where it was, I might have forgotten about it and thought ‘oh, well’. But I walk past it two or three times a week, and every time I think: ‘Why is that still there? Why can’t I move that stone?!’”

He is now considering the possibility of moving the stone closer to Ashley Down Road, where a large vehicle could pick it up. A ‘Stonehenge’-style move, using a sledge on rollers and some serious muscle-power, has been suggested. Matt is keen to stress that moving the stone will be dangerous given its weight, and safety is paramount.

But if it isn’t protected soon, this piece of history will be lost. “The wording is being eroded – if we leave it much longer it will go,” Matt says. “If we get it to the cricket ground it can be preserved. It seems such a shame to leave it there to decay.”

Placing the stone in a safe final resting place would be “a proper end to the story”, Matt says. “It’s a good outcome if it reminds people of Ashley Down’s heritage. When WG Grace was here he was the most famous man in England and he lived 100 yards from where I live. It would be a nice ending to think that something’s come of it – something concrete!”

The entrance to Gloucestershire County Cricket Club in Ashley Down, which has a tribute to Grace on the gatepost. Photo by Jess Connett

Get in touch with Matt on Twitter @thirstperson or on his blog: www.thetalkboard.co.uk/blog/about-me

Main photo by Jess Connnett 

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