Auburn House And Attached Garden Walls, Piers And Gates Sutton House And Attached Walls, Piers And Gates

Auburn House and Sutton House are a pair of attached houses dating from around 1855, located on Clifton Down in Bristol. They are constructed from squared Brandon Hill Grit rubble with limestone dressings, incorporating a shared party wall and external stacks, with a slate hipped roof. The houses are arranged with a double-depth plan and are built in a Jacobethan style.

Each house is two storeys high with an attic and basement, featuring a two-window front. A large, symmetrical central block is flanked by projecting wings, detailed with rusticated quoin strips. The facades include an ashlar basement, a deep first-floor band, a dentil cornice, and a parapet with panelled dies and moulded coping. The entrances, positioned in the returns, are distinguished by open, semicircular-arched porches and segmental-arched porte-cochères, featuring faceted keys, balustrades, pilasters with faceted panels and strapwork, leading to tiled lobbies with niches. Auburn House has a similar porch facing the side. Both entrances have semicircular-arched doorways topped with plate-glass fanlights and two-leaf six-panel doors.

Canted, five-window ground-floor bays are present, with square, blind lattice balconies and weathered corners. The centre bays feature semicircular arches on either side, and first-floor windows are mullioned, set within raised surrounds. The wings have large, ornate dormers with mullioned windows, panelled aprons, flanking Ionic pilasters with flared shafts and faceted panels, entablatures, segmental pediments and brackets to square finials, and large flanking strapwork consoles with corner finials. The parapet incorporates panels set back behind open, ashlar semicircular arches on square piers, with segmental pediments and cast-iron finials. Basement windows have segmental arches and incised voussoirs. Plate-glass sashes are fitted throughout. Large stacks with cornices are a prominent feature. The projecting wings at the returns have swept eaves. A single-storey conservatory, featuring semicircular arches to a parapet, is located to the front of the return of the right wing of Auburn House. The rear elevation has projecting wings of three windows each, with round windows to the attic. The interior was not inspected during the listing process.

Attached garden walls, constructed from squared coursed Carboniferous rubble, extend approximately 90 metres to the front and sides of the front garden. These walls have a battered base, bracketed coping, and ashlar gate piers with moulded caps and timber gates with decorative cast-iron panels. The houses are part of a group of four imposing residences facing Clifton Down.