St Vincent's Works and Attached Front Area Railings

Details

BRISTOL

ST6072 SILVERTHORNE LANE, St Philip 901-1/43/1924 (South East side) 04/03/77 St Vincent's Works and attached front area railings (Formerly Listed as: SILVERTHORNE LANE Office block at St Vincent's Works (Reemco))

GV II*

Offices. c1891. By TR Lysaght, possibly completed by RM Drake. For John Lysaght. Limestone ashlar, Pennant rubble with limestone dressings, rock-faced red sandstone, ashlar lateral stacks, a slate hipped roof with lanterns, and copper-clad turrets. An oblique L-shaped site with the entrance in the splayed corner, double-depth plan. Ruritanian castellated Gothic Revival style. 2 storeys and attic; 12-window range. Entrance set in a rectangular ground-floor panel between turrets, with a battered sandstone plinth and banded rustication below an impost band; semicircular-arched doorway and narrow linked sidelights with incised voussoirs, has 3-panel 2-leaf doors and a wrought-iron foliate grille to a plate-glass fanlight; machicolation across top of panel beneath a bowed band with Moorish foliate carving, and 2 semicircular-arched first-floor windows with plate-glass sashes. Flanking octagonal turrets have broach bases, and narrow leaded windows with rope-moulded hoods; becoming round above the first floor with a moulding, and linked by a machicolated attic storey with 4 arrow slits and a stepped crenellated parapet; the tops of the turrets have corbel-tables and rope mouldings, crenellated parapets and conical copper roofs. Flanking 3-window wings, extended to 5 windows on the right, have paired plate-glass sashes in narrow semicircular-arched recesses with rope-moulded hoods, linked by first-floor sill and impost bands, with a corbel-table above and a parapet with cross arrow slits; ground-floor windows have a central mullion, palmette capitals and rope-moulded lintels, and similar semicircular-arched first-floor windows. To either end is a buttress below a first-floor scrolled bracket against the wall, and crenellated bartizans with fish-scale domed tops. To the rear is the drawing office with 2 fully-glazed sides of 6/9-pane sashes. INTERIOR: very good and complete Doulting tiled entrance lobby, octagonal top-lit hall and open-well stair, with cream and yellow moulded and patterned tiles, red and grey panels and spandrels, and green tiles under the dado. Small lobby has half-glazed doors with bevelled glass; a semicircular-arched arcade around the hall and first-floor stair well, with putti to lintels, stained-glass fanlights and 5-panelled doors with brass finger plates; moulded dados and archivolts, mosaic floor, wrought-iron balustrade to first-floor gallery, and stained-glass ceiling lights; slate open-well stair with smooth soffit, wrought-iron balustrade and rails with carved beasts at the ends. Offices have walnut panelled walls and wainscots, pedimented doorcases with fluted pilasters, and a panelled niche with a statue of Eros. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: good wrought-iron area railings on dwarf sandstone walls in front of the wings. HISTORICAL NOTE: An outstanding example of late C19 factory architecture. Lysaght took over Acraman and Company's works and site, for iron galvanising. His brother, TR Lysaght, died before the building was completed, and the drawings are signed by Drake. The company subsequently played an important role in the development of colonial vernacular architecture, as manufacturers, at its Netham site, of corrugated-iron and pre-fabricated buildings. (The Lysaght Century (1857-1957): Bristol: 1957-: 22-23; Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 379; Lysaght T R: CEBG: Bristol: 1891-; Jones E: Industrial Architecture in Britain: London: 1985-: 129).

Listing NGR: ST6027072536

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

380525

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Jones, E, Industrial Architecture in Britain 1750-1939, (1985), 129
The Lysaght Century (1857-1957), (1957), 22-23
Gomme, A H, Jenner, M, Little, B D G, Bristol, An Architectural History, (1979)

End of official list entry

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