Merchant Venturer'S Almshouses

BRISTOL

ST5872NE KING STREET, Centre 901-1/16/595 (North side) 08/01/59 Merchant Venturers' Almshouses, Nos.1-9 (Consecutive)

GV II*

Almshouses. Dated 1696. Half destroyed by bombing c1940. Render over Pennant rubble, C20 brick end-gable, brick lateral and ridge stacks and pantile hipped roof. Double-depth plan to 2 1/2 sides of a formerly 4-sided courtyard. Early Georgian style. 2 storeys; 5:8:1-window ranges. The W and half the N ranges have gone, leaving a C20 brick gable to the end of the 5-window N range, and hipped roof to the originally-open S range, with a thin drip course and timber modillion eaves cornice. The long range has a central and 2 corner doorways, a right-hand doorway to the S range, and third from left on the N range, with scrolled brackets carved with leaves to open pediment hoods, half over the corner doorways, and timber-frames with boarded doors. Mid C20 casement windows with top-hung casements above transoms, in flush frames. Oculus over the central doorway. The road front is rubble with quoins, 4 windows with thin rubble voussoirs to flat heads, dated panel, and a good carved heraldic panel with merman and merwoman flanking a shield. Tall rear N lateral stacks, and ridge stacks separating houses to E and S sides. INTERIOR: largely refurbished mid C20, dogleg stair in the entrance hall. HISTORICAL NOTE: founded by the Merchant Venturers' Society, for seamen, as attested by the board painted with a poem to their virtues on the N side. Formerly an enclosed courtyard. (Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 90; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 434).

Listing NGR: ST5883672707