University of Bristol, Department of Botany and Attached Walls and Lamps is a Grade II listed building in the Bristol, City of local planning authority area, England. First listed on 4 March 1977. University department.

University of Bristol, Department of Botany and Attached Walls and Lamps

WRENN ID
brooding-steeple-laurel
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
Bristol, City of
Constituency
Bristol Central MP: Carla Denyer (Green)
Country
England
Date first listed
4 March 1977
Type
University department
Address
University of Bristol, Department of Botany and Attached Walls and Lamps, University Road
OS grid reference
ST 580 733
Coordinates
51.45712, -2.60479
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The University of Bristol's Department of Botany, built in 1880 by CF Hansom and continued in 1889 by E Hansom and FB Bond, is a notable example of collegiate Tudor Revival architecture. Constructed from red Pennant rubble with limestone dressings, it features lateral and ridge stacks, and Welsh slate roofs with bands of round-ended slates. The building has a double-depth plan arranged around three sides of a courtyard.

The main block, a plain L-shaped structure from 1880, stands three stories tall and has a seven-window range. It includes ogee-headed cross windows in two wide, symmetrical, full-height bays, along with strings and a crenellated parapet, and two Tudor-arched doorways. The later right-hand wing is two stories with a basement and has a six-window range, showcasing mullion and transom windows, a cornice with carved heads, and a crenellated parapet.

The left-hand gable faces the courtyard and features windows on either side of an exterior stack. The left-hand gable facing the road is three stories high, with clasping buttresses, three ground-floor windows, and a central Tudor-arched door beneath fan vaulting that supports a canted oriel with narrow flanking windows and a crenellated parapet. A semicircular-arched window is located on the second floor. To the right, a projecting octagonal tower from 1904 includes corner gargoyles and a panelled ashlar parapet. The similar street gable on the right-hand wing also has three stories and features a left-hand stair turret set back, topped with an ashlar spirelet and finial.

Inside, the building mainly consists of plain laboratory and teaching rooms. The attached front entrance walls are characterized by low piers and wrought-iron lamps.

Local climate

University of Bristol, Department of Botany and Attached Walls and Lamps receives an average of 850 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 58% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 62% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 31 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 63% of listed buildings. Of these, 12 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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