"The Pavilion, opened in July, 1884, consists of a central concert hall and assembly rooms, two promenade annexes, a refreshment saloon, and a reading room. It has been so arranged, by the entire front to the height of twelve feet being made of clear plate glass, that those beneath its roof may enjoy uninterrupted views of the surrounding scenery^[1]".

The land was part of the estate of Walter M S Evans^[2] (of The Temple Hotel). The architect was John Nuttall and Mr. F. Speed laid out the grounds which spread across sixteen acres of the hillside^[2]. There were two entrances; one was on Clifton Road, just below where the webmistress lived as a child, and the other was from Temple Walk. There is now only one entrance as the Clifton Road entrance has been sealed off.

This photograph was taken on the hillside above the Pavilion, so shows the top and rear of the building. The views were of the Heights of Abraham, High Tor and the Lovers' Walks.

In 1903 various entry tickets were available, ranging from a single ticket of 6d (sixpence) or 2/- (2 shillings or two "bob") to a season ticket for a family of 15/-. Visitors to Gulliver's Kingdom, the theme park that today occupies the site, have to pay rather more and today's visitors enjoy something very different from the Victorians ideas of entertainment.

The Pavilion and its gardens had a relatively short commercial life and the glass and iron building fell into disrepair. By the 1950s much of the plate glass was broken and the floors were rotting. The trees and shrubs, though, were fully mature and even today help to screen the theme park from the village - more successfully in the summer than the winter.

See Extracts from the London Gazette 2 April 1889. It then became privately owned