Eye Hospital, Bristol Royal Infirmary, and Attached Basement Area Railings

Details

BRISTOL

ST5873SE LOWER MAUDLIN STREET 901-1/11/136 (South West side) 13/12/73 Eye Hospital, Bristol Royal Infirmary, and attached basement area railings (Formerly Listed as: LOWER MAUDLIN STREET Eye Hospital at the Bristol Royal Infirmary to N of main entrance)

GV II

Pair of attached houses, now one hospital building. Dated 1753 on hopper head, altered to hospital and roof raised 1886. By H Crisp. Brick with limestone dressings and a slate roof. Double-depth plan. Early-mid Georgian style. 3 storeys, attic and basement; 3:6-window range. An unequal pair, articulated by pilaster strips through moulded strings at each floor to a moulded parapet coping, the narrower left-hand house with a cornice. The right-hand house has a good right-of-centre doorway with fluted Corinthian pilasters, entablature blocks and segmental pediment broken forward to the pilasters, to a segmental-arched architrave wth plate-glass overlight and double 4-panel door; windows have segmental-arched keyed brick heads and moulded timber cills, to 6/6-pane sashes in recessed, exposed frames, horned on the lower floors, and with thick bars on the second; three C19 dormers with horned 6/1-pane sashes, paired to the middle and right. A cast lead hopper head to the left inscribed IBS 1753 with a winged putto. The left-hand house has a blocked left-hand doorway with acanthus brackets to a pediment, split key to architrave, and 6/6-pane sash with ashlar below. Rubbed brick keyed flat arches to 6/6-pane sashes with reveals and concealed frames, paired in the wider window above the doorway, 3/6-panes in the second floor. Rendered basement has segmental-arched windows. The rear has a C19 canted bay and large segmental-arched stair light with C20 stained glass. INTERIOR: a good interior linked together with late C20 left-hand end opened to the hospital. Consistent interior decoration, though lower floor levels to the left. Fully panelled front ground-floor rooms with egg-and-dart cornices, 6-panel doors and shutters, eared fire surrounds with hob grates, that to right-hand front room to left-hand house flanked by fluted Ionic pilasters with a rocaille frieze and eared overmantel; a fine entrance hall to the right-hand house has fluted pilasters to panelled elliptical arches across the middle and framing the left-hand doorway, and a fine open dogleg stair with 3 column-on-vase balusters per tread, the middle one twisted, wide curtail, good carved brackets, and a moulded ramped rail with matching wainscotting; from the first-floor landing the stair is open well to the front, as before; the first-floor landing has fluted pilasters each side to a cornice with late C19 coved plaster corbels set beneath it. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached cast-iron basement area railings. Though the strings link the pair together as one build, the exposed sashes and doorcase of the larger house are of an earlier date, not unlike Dowry Square of c1720, and the cornice and recessed window frames of the narrower one appear of a later date. (Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 197; City of Bristol: City Engineer's Building Grant Plans: Bristol Record Office: 1851-: FOL 43).

Listing NGR: ST5877973450

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

379962

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Gomme, A H, Jenner, M, Little, B D G, Bristol, An Architectural History, (1979), 197

End of official list entry

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