Nova House

BRISTOL

ST5872NE TELEPHONE AVENUE, Centre 901-1/16/681 (North West side) 04/03/77 Nova House (Formerly Listed as: TELEPHONE AVENUE, Centre Avon House)

II

Offices. 1903. By Henry Williams. Brick with limestone dressings, and slate mansard roof. Double-depth plan round a central light well. Edwardian Baroque style. 2 storeys, attic and basement; 9-window range, with 3-storey and attic rear block. The long entrance front has a raised, rusticated basement, the upper floors articulated by banded pilasters strips to a modillion cornice, parapet with square section attached balusters between panelled dies, with large ashlar dormers. The entrance front has 2:1:1:1:3:1 windows with pilasters between, and 1 window in the splayed left-hand corner; central doorway has fluted half-pilasters with faceted blocks, key and modillion pediment, plate-glass overlight and double 8-panel doors. Windows have keyed, eared Gibbs surrounds, ground-floor with a sill band stepped down between them and dentil pediments, and first-floor cornices; 4 large dormers, 2:1:2:1, as the lower windows with side consoles to the paired ones, and later dormers set between behind the parapet. The left-hand return has 3:3 windows, paired dormers over each, and the left-hand section has a 3rd storey with panels to the lintels and an inserted central doorway. Ground-floor plate-glass windows, and plate-glass sashes above. Basement windows have incised voussoirs. INTERIOR: wide entrance stair hall containing a lateral stair flight with 2 quarter-landings, cantilevered stone treads and wrought-iron railings with leaves, and semicircular-arched windows up the stairs with stained-glass lit fron the well; doorcases have surrounds with fluted half pilasters and fluted cornices, to 2-panel doors; the hall has a wide bow-ended half-glazed screen with curved panes; first-floor left-hand room half panelled with a strapwork ceiling and very good Jacobean style 1700 stone fire surround, with paired Ionic columns, paired Corinthian columns to the overmantel, strapwork and cornices with a central panel painted 1 E 7/ 0 AM 0; a similarly-styled 1550 stone fire surround in the ground-floor hall has an overmantel with 3 Ionic herms, painted shields and strapwork. HISTORICAL NOTE: The fire surrounds came from No.7 Small Street which belonged to the Elton family. Formerly the offices of the National Telephone Co. (Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 80, 389; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 414).

Listing NGR: ST5872472827