Clifton College, Percival Buildings And Wilson Tower

Clifton College, including Percival Buildings and Wilson Tower, comprises classrooms and a library, dating primarily from 1869. The Wilson Tower was added in 1889, designed by Hansom and Bond. The buildings are constructed from snecked Brandon Hill Grit with limestone dressings and ashlar, featuring ridge stacks and a slate cross gabled roof. Percival Buildings form the north-west side of a quadrangle and are arranged on two storeys with a nine-window range. The ground floor features a cloistered arcaded area, with a central gabled gatehouse. The first floor has mullion windows with decorative traceried heads, accompanied by buttresses and crenellated parapets. The open two-centred arches of the cloister vault are supported by columns and have attached parapets, with flat-headed windows behind, set within a parapet. The central projecting gatehouse features diagonal buttresses to the ground floor and three orders to the two-centred archway. Attached corner columns on the first floor rise to finials with dragon motifs. A canted oriel window above the archway includes a central cross window. It has a parapet topped with an ashlar gable incorporating a blind three-light panel and a griffon finial. A flagged archway beneath the gatehouse has built-in benches. The rear range has nine windows with wide two-centred arched ground-floor windows and three-light first-floor windows, separated by buttresses. Wilson Tower consists of four stages with large, octagonal corner turrets separated by horizontal bands. The south-west turret’s top stage is of ashlar, topped with a pyramidal roof and crockets. A wide four-centred archway has a decorative label with head stops. Above this is a two-storey canted oriel with fan corbels, flanked by four-light windows. These windows are separated by a band of shields and topped by a parapet containing panel tracery. Paired two-light windows are present on the third stage, beneath a cornice featuring gargoyles. The interior of Percival Buildings includes ground-floor classrooms with ceiling beams supported by corbels. The full-height library on the first floor has cusped principal rafters on octagonal aisle posts. The tower incorporates a Council room with a Tudor-style fireplace, panelled walls, and panelled ceilings and doors.