St Bartholomew's Hospital

Details

BRISTOL

ST5873SE CHRISTMAS STREET 901-1/11/55 (North West side) 08/01/59 Nos.17, 18 AND 19 St Bartholomew's Hospital (Formerly Listed as: CHRISTMAS STREET Nos.17-19 (Consecutive) incl. gateway of St Bartholomew's Hospital and buildings at rear)

GV II*

C12 town house incorporated into monastery hospital founded 1240 by Sir John le Warre, Bristol Grammar School 1532-1767, Queen Elizabeth Hospital School 1767-1847, incorporating three C17 town houses, model workers flats of 1865, converted to offices 1978. Late Norman-style columns and a Decorated Gothic-style archway. MATERIALS: limestone ashlar, rendered timber-frames, brick lateral stacks and pantile roof. PLAN: internally remodelled open-plan offices to sides of 2 courtyards. EXTERIOR: street front of a row of C17 houses, each of 3 storeys and attic; 1-window range. The left-hand pair with gables to the street, the right-hand house contains a central C13 arched gateway with chamfered reveals to imposts and a deeply-moulded arch, with timber arched braces above on corbels to a jettied first floor with a C20 timber beam, and pegged mullion windows with leaded metal casements. The inside of the arch has attached columns with stiff leaf capitals, moulded as the front; a flagged passage has a blind left-hand arcade of 2 trefoil arches on columns with moulded capitals and hoodmould, facing a fine carved figure of the Madonna and Child with folded drapes, and at the far end of the passage, an elliptical arch with 1 order, columns to foliate capitals with grapes, set in the angle between 2 keel-moulded arches. A passage leads through to a 2-centre arch, set within a larger infilled 2-arch arcade on round Norman columns with scallop capitals with square abaci; a free-standing battered octagonal arch stands approx 3m in front of the left-hand column, possibly part of the hospital chapel. The left-hand gable has a jettied first floor with a slate pent, a small second-floor jetty and a moulded strip to the attic; a C19 shop front has an ovolo-moulded beam across the central doorway and plate glass windows, beneath a good 2-storey canted oriel with close studding beneath central Ipswich windows with faceted keys and small Ionic capitals beneath and flanking cross windows, with leaded metal casements, and a 4-light attic mullion window. The stone left-hand corner is curved out beneath the jetty, and the curve continues in the left return to an exterior stack, with a left-hand small first-floor opening with stone jambs and lintel, and a rear section with a Tudor-arched doorway with C20 door and a left-hand 6/6-pane sash. Above is a moulded 3-light mullion and transom window with 6 panes above and 4 panes beneath the transom, beneath an overhanging gable, against half of which the side of No.20 Christmas Steps (qv) butts. No.19 is a roughcast 2-window range with a C20 shop front beneath jettied first floor, fascia boards to first floor and eaves. Shop front has a stall riser, central doorway and glazing bars to windows, early C18 9/9-pane sashes in flush frames above. Rubble right-hand return. Facing the rear courtyard is a 3 storey 5-window late C17 range with a cornice and parapet, a central elliptical-arched doorway, cross windows with metal leaded casements and label moulds, the right-hand range separated by a pilaster strip, with a right-hand open elliptical arch, 2-centred arched first-floor window with Y tracery, and second-floor quatrefoil window. The 1865 block is 3 storeys; 11-window range. Open stone stairs with wrought-iron railings at the right-hand end to full-width cantilevered stone access balconies, double doors at the left-hand end, and on the ground floor separated by pairs of windows. 6/6-pane sashes. The rear elevation has a left-hand 7-window range of 6/6-pane sashes with timber lintels, a dividing C20 stair block, and right-hand 5-window section of alternate 3-window mullion and transom windows and trefoil-headed openings. INTERIOR: rear block ground floor with 5 chamfered heavy timber beams trenched for top joists; the block facing into the courtyard has heavy beams cut for joist joints in the third floor. HISTORICAL NOTE: the round piers predate the hospital, and may come from an aisled hall, the earliest remains of domestic architecture in the City, adapted to form the hospital chapel. The 1865 block was developed as model housing for the poor, one of the earliest such blocks of flats. The balconies formerly extended round what was an enclosed courtyard. (Loxton). (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 438; Mallory K: The Bristol House: Bristol: 1985-: 50; Loxton S: Loxton's Bristol: Bristol: 1992-: 8).

Listing NGR: ST5866073191

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

379136

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: North Somerset and Bristol, (1958)
Mallory, K, The Bristol House, (1985), 50
Loxton, SL, Loxtons Bristol, (1992), 8

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.