Bristol Stock Exchange And Attached Railings

Bristol Stock Exchange and Attached Railings

An office building of 1903 designed by H Williams, situated on the north-east side of St Nicholas Street in Bristol's city centre. The building is constructed in limestone ashlar with black and red granite dressings.

The structure displays Edwardian Italian Mannerist styling. It comprises a single storey with a 4-window range, taking the form of a tetrastyle pedimented temple front. The focal point is a set of black granite Corinthian columns on red granite bases, set forward from the main elevation. To the left stands the principal entrance, while 1-window sections project back on the right-hand side. The wall surface above the columns features banded sections with fluting up to a plat band, with a frieze decorated with swags and an entablature supporting a modillion cornice and panelled parapet.

The entrance itself is exceptionally ornate, with paired granite half-columns and responds supporting a forward-set entablature. Above rises a broken segmental pediment with Mannerist volutes. At the centre is a projecting shell hood niche topped with a segmental pediment, containing a dated cartouche and flanked by carved putti representing Justice and Enterprise. The entrance doorway has a semicircular arch with square columns, a carved key, and arched 10-panel double doors. Above the doorway, the pediment features an exposed iron beam, carved frieze with swag, and large carved City arms in the tympanum.

The windows match the doorway in their arched form, with Corinthian columns set in the reveals and keys carved as faces. Panelled aprons sit below each window, with crossed branches carved in the spandrels.

Interior

The interior survives in exceptionally fine condition and displays remarkable richness throughout. The entrance comprises a tile-lined lobby with a beaten bronze lantern, leading to a vestibule and stairs to the ground floor, decorated with tulip motifs. The top-lit vestibule features Portland stone pilasters on pink granite bases, wooden door cases with egg and dart mouldings, and glazed double doors with Art Nouveau handles. Behind the reception desk stands a wooden screen with Ionic pilasters. A wooden fireplace surround with red marble slips and an Ionic mantelpiece is complemented by a mosaic floor.

The dealing room is top-lit by a lantern and features a coved ceiling rising from a dentil cornice. Four pendant gilt lights hang from the ceiling, each fitted with six cut glass lanterns. A recessed entrance is flanked by a pair of Norwegian 'Black Pearl' granite columns with marble Corinthian capitals, set on pink granite dado and bases and surmounted by a lunette containing a clock and pierced gilt metal screen. Giant Corinthian columns flank the space in front of marble pilasters. Half-height wooden fielded panelling to the street elevation incorporates sloping notice-boards. Three arched windows face the street.

The south wall displays an elaborate two-stage wooden chimneypiece with dentil cornice. To either side are blackboards within egg and dart surrounds. The lower level features Ionic pilasters flanking an oak relief by B. Creswick depicting 'Commerce Uniting the Nations', and a fire surround of mixed marbles with a curved fender seat. The upper level has paired Ionic pilasters flanking a tripartite arch with swags.

The ante-room contains a wooden fireplace surround with bolection moulding, veined marble slips, flanking Ionic columns with dentil cornice, and a mantelpiece with tripartite arch.

Stairs descend to the basement, top-lit by an oval lantern and fitted with wrought iron rails. Shell-headed niches line the stair walls; the dado is clad in dark green tiles with lemon yellow above. A bronze Mannerist dedication cartouche beneath a twin-light bracket lamp reads: 'THIS TABLET WAS PLACED HERE BY THE MEMBERS OF THE BRISTOL STOCK EXCHANGE TO RECORD THE GIFT OF THIS BUILDING TO THE EXCHANGE BY THEIR PRESIDENT GEORGE WHITE AUGUST 1903'.

The basement contains a board room and lavatories. The board room is accessed through double doors with etched and bevelled glass panels. The interior features half-height wooden panelling in Jacobean style with glazed fronts to upper lockers and cupboards below. An elaborate chimney surround has a pink marble front, squat Ionic columns to the mantelpiece with egg and dart-enriched arch, and a fender seat. Scrolled Art Nouveau bracket lamps adorn the walls.

The unaltered male lavatories retain their original tiled walls and floors, with a trio of tiled niches containing marble basins, a fireplace with mirrored mantelpiece, and a pair of lavatory cubicles.

Subsidiary Features

The building is accompanied by attached wrought-iron railings with spikes between the columns. The doorway design derives from St Mary's, Oxford.