Fiesole (Youth Hostel)

Fiesole is a detached villa built in 1846-1848, now used as a Youth Hostel, situated on the north side of Bathwick Hill. It was designed by H.E. Goodridge.

The building is constructed in limestone ashlar with a shallow pitched slate roof featuring wide bracketed eaves and stacks with moulded stone brackets to ridges, slopes and corners.

The villa is a two-storey Italianate structure with a three-window range to the south entrance front. A central four-storey east entrance tower dominates the composition. Beneath the tower's gable is a Venetian window set in a raised surround with keystone, opening onto a stone balcony balustraded to the front and supported on shaped stone brackets. A platband at the level of the balcony plinth encircles the tower. The second floor contains a three-over-three pane sash window in a raised eared-and-shouldered surround. Above the first floor French window, the encircling platband steps forward as a shallow pediment, with a projecting sill band on brackets and a crest below. The ground floor features a triple arcade with ornamental capitals to two columns in antis.

The stepped-forward two-storey range to the left has a raised eared-and-shouldered architrave to a French window opening onto a similar balcony, with a four-over-four pane sash window above in a raised surround with moulded sill on brackets. The stepped-forward range to the right has a pent roof with wide eaves, a tall two-light casement window in a raised eared-and-shouldered architrave with projecting bracketed sill, and a set-forward weathered ground floor.

The south garden front is dominated by a virtually central shallow-gabled stepped-forward range crowned by a gabled stone bellcote with semicircular arched opening. To the first floor is a semicircular arched French window; to the ground floor, a full-height tripartite window with French windows to the centre. A further stepped-forward narrower gable sits over arcades fronting both floors, the first floor being open in Venetian style with pierced balustrades. The ground floor arcade has tripartite openings with keystones. To the right, an axial stack with triple shaft to the first floor pierces the eaves; at ground floor level within the stack is a slit window in a raised bracketed surround. The set-back right return of the gabled west front lies to the left.

The west front, with views over a valley, comprises two gabled blocks flanking a single-storey range. The south-west gable is similar to that on the south front; the north-west gable has a two-storey canted bay with French windows to the ground floor. A window under the eaves has a stone balcony above a tall window in a raised surround.

The interior is of very high quality. The hall features a polychromatic tiled floor, an open well, and an open-string stone staircase with decorative cast iron balusters leading to an arcaded landing. Ground floor rooms retain much fine plasterwork. A tripartite screen with full entablature runs across the north side of the entrance hall; above the entrance is a plaster relief depicting mounted men from the Pan-Athenaic procession from the Parthenon. At first floor level, the arcaded landing to the hall displays a plaster relief showing Goodridge and his wife surrounded by putti playing with emblems of the Arts and Sciences. The hall has a coffered ceiling with central skylight.

The house was reputedly intended for Lieutenant Colonel John Willoughby, who moved into it himself in 1848 when he sold Montebello (now Bathwick Grange). Its construction was funded by the development of Casa Bianca and La Casetta just below, with which it forms a distinctive group of outstanding early Victorian villas. Fiesole is of exceptional architectural interest for its highly idiosyncratic style, in which Goodridge fused Greek Revival and Italianate Picturesque principles, reflected in the villa's name.