1-8, Nelson Place West

A palace-fronted terrace of eight houses on the north side of Nelson Place West, dating to around 1805 and attributed to John Palmer, with twentieth-century additions.

The terrace is constructed in limestone ashlar to the front and main return elevations, with rendered or coursed rubble to the rear. The front is roofed in slate with double Roman tiles to the rear slopes, though Number 8 also has slate to its rear elevation. The composition is incomplete as a palace front, with only the projecting end pavilion at the east end (Number 1) providing the intended visual emphasis; the terrace was extended to the west in the late twentieth century.

Each house comprises three storeys with an attic storey and basement, presented as a two-window-wide front, except Numbers 1 and 2. All windows are sashes with varying pane configurations: six-pane to the attic above twelve-pane sills, deep eighteen-pane to the balcony level, sixteen-pane to the ground floor, and sixteen or twelve-pane to basement. Number 1 features four giant Ionic pilasters brought slightly forward as a pavilion but has no balcony and twelve-pane ground-floor windows. Number 2 has twelve-pane ground-floor windows and a blind central light to the attic. Number 3 has an extra twelve-pane window inserted where a door formerly stood, and nine-pane to the attic. Number 4 has six-pane attic windows. Number 5 has one first-floor window with twelve long panes replacing a former eighteen-pane arrangement, and four-pane to the attic. Number 6 has fifteen-pane first-floor windows and four-pane attic. Number 7 has fifteen-pane first-floor windows but a plain sash to the attic. Number 8 has twelve-pane ground-floor windows. To the basement, Numbers 1, 2, 5 and 6 have sixteen-pane windows; the remainder have twelve-pane, though Numbers 7 and 8 additionally have twentieth-century glazed doors.

The doors, positioned to the right but shared between Numbers 1 and 2, and between Numbers 3 and 4, are all six-panelled with the top two panels glazed and a plain transom light. The ground floor is heavily rusticated with voussoirs framing the doors and windows, though the rustication does not return to the reveals. Above a moulded band runs a full-width stone slab balcony on brackets, finished with fine cast-iron panelled railings featuring Chinese diagonal lattice work and standards embellished with Greek key ornament. Number 1, lacking its balcony, has instead a deep band beneath the first-floor sill that forms the base to the pilasters, bearing the inscription "NELSON PLACE" incised in fine Roman lettering on the platband. A continuous entablature below the deep attic storey comprises a cornice, blocking course and parapet. Each house has an ashlar chimney stack to the left, serving both roof ridges.

The return elevation to Nile Street comprises four bays with blind lights to the outer bays, rising three storeys with an attic, fenestrated with six, twelve, eighteen and twelve-pane sashes with bands and mouldings matching those to the front of Number 1. The first-floor platband carries the inscription "NILE STREET" in fine Roman lettering.

The rear elevation is varied: Numbers 1 to 3 are rendered, whilst the others are in rubble with some ashlar, particularly to projecting narrow full-height wings serving Numbers 5 to 8. Sashes throughout are glazed with bars in mostly six or twelve-pane configurations, though some feature eighteen, nine or four-pane arrangements. A simple coped parapet with a moulded band below the attic storey runs across. The terrace presents its back to the Upper Bristol Road, and this rear elevation has been extensively altered with the addition of closet wings and other modifications.

The interiors have not been inspected. The houses have been adapted for use as flats and are believed to have undergone extensive internal alteration.

Across the front of each house stands fine cast-iron spear-head railing on a rounded curb. Doors are approached by a landing supported on a quadrant vault bridge.

The terrace is set at right angles to the north end of Norfolk Crescent and forms part of a larger development laid out around a triangular green bounded by the River Avon to the south. Nelson Place takes its architectural inspiration from Norfolk Crescent and reuses many of the same elements, particularly the ironwork, to create a cohesive composition. Like the Royal Crescent, this development represented a major urban expansion at the city's edge, commanding views over an unspoiled rural prospect. The frontage has been extensively restored in recent times, during which the terrace's overall palace-front composition was completed.