Ashbourne House

ST 5776 901-1/28/2139

BRISTOL HENLEAZE ROAD (West side) Henleaze No 2 Ashbourne House

II

Includes: No 39 DOWNS PARK WEST Henleaze.

Pair of houses, one now a nursing home. Dated 1904 by owner. Probably built to designs of Rodway and Dening. Pennant rubble with stone dressings, tile-hung attic, brick exterior and ridge stacks diagonally set, and tiled cross-gabled roof. Free Domestic Revival style. Double-depth plan.

EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and attic; 5-window range. Near-symmetrical front has projecting outer gables with tile-hung attics, connected at ground floor across the front and pierced by a central full-height recessed entrance, divided by a shallow segmental arch, to a half-glazed door with margin lights. Flanking the recess is a left-hand pent and right-hand parapeted wall containing a 3-light window. Right-hand front gable has a canted ashlar oriel on a moulded bracket, the left-hand front gable has a large ground-floor canted bay with a coped parapet raised in a segmental arch. Flat stone mullion-and-transom windows with leaded metal casements; in the gables are 4-light timber mullion windows, with three 2-light dormers between. The rear has paired central gables with outer dormers, a full-width pent and a large ground-floor round-arched window. The right-hand return has a l-window gabled bay between large external stacks, the right-hand one set in a gable with half-hipped roof: central doorway with a 4-bracket canopy on 3 enriched attached columns and with right-hand oculus, to a 2-leaf door, with to the left a former Doctor's speaking tube and bell pull.

INTERIOR of No.3 includes a lobby to a half-glazed door, central lateral entrance stair hall with a stair flight and cantilevered landing and tall square newels, plaster dentil cornices, and in the NE ground-floor room a large fireplace with Bristol Delft tiled surround. A large and varied pair with 3 full elevations developing the corner site, some good details such as the recessed entrance, and considered use of different materials. One of the earliest houses in Downs Park, similar to the good group of Domestic Revival houses in Downleaze.

(Gomme A, Jenner M & Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 399) .