Red Lodge Museum

The house was built between 1578 and 1580 and was expanded in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was built on the site of an old Carmelite Priory by Sir John Young.

What to see at the Red Lodge Museum

Visitors to the museum can visit seven rooms over two floors that have been restored to show the lodge during three different periods: the Elizabethan, Georgian and Victorian eras.

Visitors can see the Original Lodge (which includes the Great Oak Room), the Family Home, the former Victorian School and the Knot Garden.

The Original Lodge is made up of three rooms which include period oak furniture including an Elizabethan four-poster bed and what is considered the UK’s oldest portrait of a slave. The Great Oak Room is one of the rooms that comprise the Original Lodge. This is considered the city’s last complete Elizabethan room. The room took two years to complete and it features ornate wood panelling that was typical of the era.

The Family Home is the part of the house that comprises the 1720s extension that doubled the size of the house. This part of the house has a Georgian-era interior decor and it features a large staircase, the New Oak Room, the Print Room and the Mary Carpenter Room.

In 1854 the Red Lodge was converted into a girls’ school. The former Victorian School shows how a school would have functioned in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In the 1980s, the lodge’s Knot Garden was restored to replicate the 17th-century garden design featuring low hedges that were popular during the Elizabethan period.

Visiting the Red Lodge Museum

The Red Lodge Museum is on Park Row, around a 10-minute walk west of the city centre and a slightly shorter walk from the Old Town.

The museum is open to the public between and April and December. Admission is free, although donations are accepted.

Nearby attractions include the Georgian House Museum, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol Cathedral, Bristol Aquarium, We the Curious, which are all less than a 10-minute walk from the museum.