Numbers 27, 28 And 29 And Attached Front Area Railings And Gates

This is a terrace of three houses located on Orchard Street, Bristol, dating to approximately 1722. The houses are constructed of brick with limestone dressings, featuring party wall stacks and a pantile roof. They are built in an Early Georgian style.

The terrace is three storeys high, with a four-window range to each house except No. 27, which has three windows. The facades feature rusticated pilaster strips, moulded strings defining each floor, and a coped parapet. The central doorway of No. 28 has fluted pilasters supporting a bracketed broken segmental pediment, a wooden door frame, and a large eight-panel door. The outer houses have left-hand doorways with moulded brackets supporting canopies, rectangular overlights with lozenge glazing bars, and six-panel doors. Windows are set within keyed brick flat arches, with grotesque carved keys above the windows of No. 28. The window glazing is predominantly 6/6-pane sashes, although first-floor windows at No. 29 and second-floor windows at No. 27 have 9/9-pane sashes. The roof has slate-hung, segmental-headed dormers. A limestone ashlar shop front from the 20th century is visible on the right return, rendered above with two first-floor sash windows.

The interior of No. 28 is particularly notable, featuring a fine, fully-panelled entrance stair hall with an open-well staircase leading to a balcony landing. The staircase balusters are column-on-vase style, with fluted Corinthian newels and a ramped, moulded handrail incorporating a wide curtail and wreathed rail with an inlaid star. Foliate carved brackets support the soffit. Fluted Ionic pilasters flank the ground-floor semicircular-arched doorway and the first-floor doorway, and Corinthian pilasters are present similarly. A dogleg rear service stair is also present. The interior includes panelled rooms, cornices, and six-panel doors. No. 29 has a good dogleg stair.

Attached to the front of the terrace are wrought-iron railings and gates, curved inwards towards the doorways. These houses are part of a notable early Georgian terrace, alongside the slightly earlier numbers 25 and 26. Orchard Street was laid out in 1716, and the houses were built by speculative builders using varying plans for different clients, although they share common elements in their elevations.