56, Corn Street

BRISTOL

ST5873SE CORN STREET, Centre 901-1/11/573 (South East side) 08/01/59 No.56 (Formerly Listed as: CORN STREET (South side) Nos.46 AND 56 Exchange Buildings)

GV II*

Coffee house. 1782. By Thomas Paty. Limestone ashlar, roof not visible. Single-depth plan, upper floors projecting back over the N aisle of All Saints Church (qv). Palladian style. 3 storeys; 3-window range. A symmetrical front has a pedimented centre set forward with a ground-floor impost band, plat band, rusticated quoins above to a frieze, cornice and parapet. Ground-floor arcade of keyed semicircular arches with moulded archivolts, plate-glass below upper panes; architraves above with sill blocks, and pediments to the first floor, to 6/6-pane sashes. Matching right-hand return, slightly narrower, with a left-hand doorway, blind right-hand ground-floor arch and central upper windows. INTERIOR: C20 stair on the ground floor, central dogleg stair to the upper floors with turned balusters, column newels and ball finials. Built by Paty to balance Glascodine's matching Old Post Office (qv) at the opposite side of the Exchange (qv), and forming a formal composition with them. (Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 149; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 416).

Listing NGR: ST5886573024