The Clifton Club

BRISTOL

ST5673SE THE MALL, Clifton 901-1/7/1062 (North East side) 08/01/59 No.22 The Clifton Club

GV II*

Formerly known as: No.22 The Assembly Rooms and Clifton Hotel THE MALL. Formerly assembly rooms and hotel, now club. 1806-9. By Francis Greenway. Interior by Joseph Kay. Altered 1894 by EH Edwards. Limestone ashlar, roof not visible. Double-depth plan. Classical style. 2 storeys and basement; 5-window range. A fine symmetrical composition returns at each end, with a raised, rusticated basement to a band, engaged colonnade of 6 giant Ionic columns to an architrave, attic storey and large pediment containing a shield. Semicircular-arched basement windows and central doorway have coved reveals and wrought-iron grilles. Upper windows between the columns, with late C19 ornament to first floor, pediments with foliate consoles to outer and central ones, and canted bays with Ionic pilaster jambs and entablature to the second and fourth windows, all with horned plate-glass sashes, 6/6-pane above and 3/6 panes to the attic. 1 window in the returns. INTERIOR: entrance hall with flanking arcades of semicircular arches on thin columns with foliate capitals and moulded keys; principal first-floor rooms include the dining room to the front with marble fire surrounds to each end, reading room with attached columns, with Temple of the Winds capitals, painted with pink marble, with late C19 fire surrounds to each end; rear card and billiard rooms with 1889 fire surrounds. Rear rooms extend into Nos 18-28 (qv) on either side. Originally a 17-window terrace including Nos 18, 20 & 24-28, forming symmetrical wings, and creating a fine culmination to the terraces below The Mall. The hotel was closed in 1855 and converted into a club, and the flanking buildings into shops. A good facade forming an important termination to Clifton's only formal square. (Ison W: The Georgian Buildings of Bristol: Bath: 1952-: 130; Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 218).

Listing NGR: ST5697473110