The Clifton Club

The Clifton Club, formerly known as The Assembly Rooms and Clifton Hotel, is a building of 1806-9, situated on The Mall in Bristol. Designed by Francis Greenway, with interior work by Joseph Kay, it was altered in 1894 by EH Edwards. Constructed from limestone ashlar with a largely hidden roof, the building has a double-depth plan. It is executed in a Classical style, presenting a symmetrical composition and returning at each end. The ground floor features a raised, rusticated basement to a band, and an engaged colonnade of six giant Ionic columns supporting an architrave. An attic storey is topped by a large pediment bearing a shield. The basement windows are semicircular arched, with coved reveals and wrought-iron grilles; the central doorway mirrors this design. Upper-floor windows are framed by late 19th-century decorative elements, including pediments with foliate consoles and canted bays with Ionic pilaster jambs and entablatures, featuring horned plate-glass sashes, with 6/6-pane glazing above and 3/6 panes to the attic. A single window is found in the returns.

The interior entrance hall has flanking arcades of semicircular arches supported by thin columns with foliate capitals and moulded keys. Principal first-floor rooms include a front dining room with marble fire surrounds at each end, and a reading room with attached columns and Temple of the Winds capitals, painted to resemble pink marble, with late 19th-century fire surrounds. Rear card and billiard rooms also feature fire surrounds dating to 1889. These rooms extend into the adjacent buildings at numbers 18-28. Originally part of a 17-window terrace incorporating numbers 18, 20 and 24-28, it formed a symmetrical wing, creating a significant conclusion to the terraces along The Mall. The hotel closed in 1855 and was subsequently converted into a club, with the flanking buildings becoming shops. The facade is a notable feature, marking an important termination to Clifton’s formal square. Stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops are present in the roof structure.