Wills Number 1 Factory

BRISTOL

ST315871 EAST STREET, Bedminster 901-1/45/379 (West side) 06/06/75 Wills No.1 Factory (Formerly Listed as: EAST STREET Entrance block of Wills No.1 Factory)

GV II

Offices, formerly tobacco factory. 1884 and c1886. By Sir Frank Wills. Red Cattybrook brick, limestone and slate. Gothic style. 3 storeys; 19-window range. The front divides into 2 separate builds: to the right, 9-bay arcade of tall lancet arches with linked hoods, below groups of thin windows developed down from the corbel table of the cornice and parapet. Within the arcades, a plinth of weatherings beneath a pair of tall, shouldered windows with chamfered jambs, a basketwork brick panel, and a pair of first-floor lancet cross windows, with a quatrefoil panel in the tympanum. The centre bay is a 4-storey square entrance tower with a machicolated cornice, and a French pyramid roof with gablet vents and an iron widow's walk. At the base of the tower are 2 open lancet arches on round shafts with pedestals and waterleaf capitals, engaged at the sides, with stopped hoods above. First and second floors are set back within a tall lancet-arched opening, forming a balcony with shaft balusters. The first-floor windows are lancets on slender shafts with waterleaf capitals, and above them an unmoulded 3-light window with heavy mullions and transom. The tower is supported at the sides by shallow, weathered buttreses. The slightly later left-hand range of 12 taller lancet bays is tied in by the matching cornice and parapet, but the bays extend up into the attic windows. Inside them, 2 storeys of identical pairs of rectangular windows with slender shafts and waterleaf capitals, separated by a basketwork panel, and a large blind quatrefoil in the tympanum. The factory behind was demolished in 1988, and rebuilt behind the facade, and the ground floor was opened to form a covered pavement. (Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 380; Winstone R: Bristol As It Was: Bristol: 1962-: 418).

Listing NGR: ST5872271724