Stoke Park estate in Bristol to be screened from M32

A manor house is to be screened from nearby motorway traffic as part of a major restoration project.

The Stoke Park estate, which includes the 16th Century Dower House, is a familiar sight for motorists on the M32 into Bristol.

But the 270-acre landscape is now listed on Historic England's "at risk" register.

Highways England is providing £127,000 for planting, fencing and drainage, which will be completed in March 2020.

Hedges and trees will be planted to screen the site from traffic and new fencing will be put up to protect livestock.

Drainage work in the motorway underpass will stabilise the site of the now lost Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii, which was modelled on an ancient mausoleum at Albano, near Rome.

Work to reinstate grazing is also taking place, supported by Defra.

The Grade II-listed Dower House was built in 1553 by Sir Richard Berkeley and rebuilt about 1760.

It is said to be haunted by the ghost of the Duchess of Beaufort who fell off her horse and died on the estate in the 18th Century.

It was used as part of the Stoke Park Hospital for mental health from 1909 until its closure in 1988, and was converted into apartments in 2004.

The surrounding parkland, now managed by Bristol City Council, was designed by Thomas Wright - a renowned astronomer, mathematician and architect.

The site, spanning both sides of the M32, includes ancient woodland and ponds with several species of breeding bird such as the reed warbler and reed bunting.

Bristol's deputy mayor Asher Craig said: "Stoke Park Estate is nationally important, the best surviving example of work by the influential mid-18th Century astronomer, Thomas Wright.

"We welcome the opportunity to reduce some of the impacts of the motorway along its immediate boundary."