Fosters Chambers

A pair of attached houses located on Small Street in Bristol, now used as offices and a restaurant. The building's origins lie in a 15th-century banqueting hall, with a front façade likely dating to the late 17th century and containing 18th-century windows. Around 1846, the right-hand elevation was redesigned by R.S. Pope, and the ground floor front was altered in the mid-20th century.

The construction includes limestone ashlar on the ground floor, render above, random limestone ashlar on the right-hand return, a right-hand exterior stack, and a double Roman cross-gabled mansard roof. The building has a double-depth plan, standing three stories high with an attic and double basement. The front elevation displays a symmetrical arrangement with two gables, paired semicircular-arched doorways at the centre, and 18th-century-style shop fronts with shallow, bowed windows with glazing bars, set flush to either side. Basement doors are located below the left-hand shop. Horned 6/6-pane sash windows are arranged in pairs within raised roughcast panels with quoin-effect edges; small 2/2-pane sashes are in the attic.

The 19th-century right-hand return features an exterior stack with three octagonal moulded stacks to the left of a 4-centre arched doorway, which has a heavy plank door with moulded rails, strap hinges, a label mould, foliate spandrels, and the inscription "FOSTERS CHAMBERS" above. An arcade of small 4-centre arched windows is on the first floor, and a 5-light mullion window with 20th-century casements is on the third floor. A ground-floor two-light mullion window with a splayed surround is present on the left return, dating to the 17th century.

The interior retains some timbers from the original 15th-century banqueting hall, which included a hammer-beam roof (now largely gone). Surviving timbers include an ovolo-moulded potential door frame set within arched vaults at the rear on the ground floor. Below are three 15th-century segmental-arched vaults running back from the pavement, with a smaller, lower vault toward the rear. The 19th-century portion of the building contains an entrance to a dogleg staircase with stick balusters, column newels, and a ramped moulded rail.

Historically, the building was the residence of John Foster, Mayor of Bristol in 1481, and founder of Foster's Almshouses and Chapel of the Three Kings of Cologne. The right-hand return was constructed to echo the nearby Guildhall, creating an enclosed space. The building has undergone external restoration and internal alterations.