St Vincent'S Works And Attached Front Area Railings

St Vincent's Works and attached front area railings

Offices built around 1891, designed by T R Lysaght and possibly completed by R M Drake, constructed for John Lysaght. The building stands on an oblique L-shaped site on Silverthorne Lane in St Philip, Bristol.

The structure is executed in limestone ashlar and Pennant rubble with limestone dressings, incorporating rock-faced red sandstone elements, ashlar lateral stacks, and a slate hipped roof with lanterns and copper-clad turrets. It exemplifies the Ruritanian castellated Gothic Revival style.

The building comprises two storeys and an attic, presenting a 12-window range. The entrance is positioned within the splayed corner, set in a rectangular ground-floor panel between turrets. This entrance features a battered sandstone plinth and banded rustication beneath an impost band, with a semicircular-arched doorway flanked by narrow linked sidelights bearing incised voussoirs. The doorway contains a 3-panel 2-leaf door and wrought-iron foliate grille to a plate-glass fanlight. Above the entrance runs machicolation topped by a bowed band with Moorish foliate carving, and two semicircular-arched first-floor windows with plate-glass sashes.

The flanking octagonal turrets have broach bases and narrow leaded windows with rope-moulded hoods. Above the first floor these turrets become circular, marked by a moulding, and are linked by a machicolated attic storey containing four arrow slits and a stepped crenellated parapet. The turret tops feature corbel-tables and rope mouldings, crenellated parapets and conical copper roofs.

The flanking three-window wings, extended to five windows on the right, display paired plate-glass sashes in narrow semicircular-arched recesses with rope-moulded hoods, linked by first-floor sill and impost bands. A corbel-table sits above these, supporting a parapet with cross arrow slits. Ground-floor windows have a central mullion, palmette capitals and rope-moulded lintels; the first-floor windows match the semicircular-arched form above. At either end stand buttresses below first-floor scrolled brackets against the wall, surmounted by crenellated bartizans with fish-scale domed tops. The rear includes a drawing office with fully-glazed sides containing 6/9-pane sashes.

The interior contains notable features throughout. The entrance lobby is clad in very good and complete Doulting tiles. An octagonal top-lit hall connects to an open-well stair, both lined with cream and yellow moulded and patterned tiles, red and grey panels and spandrels, and green tiles under the dado. The small lobby features half-glazed doors with bevelled glass. A semicircular-arched arcade surrounds the hall and first-floor stairwell, with putti to lintels, stained-glass fanlights and five-panelled doors fitted with brass finger plates. Moulded dados and archivolts, a mosaic floor, a wrought-iron balustrade to the first-floor gallery, and stained-glass ceiling lights complete this space. The slate open-well stair has a smooth soffit, wrought-iron balustrade and rails with carved beasts at the ends. Individual offices are finished with walnut panelled walls and wainscots, pedimented doorcases with fluted pilasters, and a panelled niche containing a statue of Eros.

The building is fronted by good wrought-iron area railings on dwarf sandstone walls.

Historical context: This represents an outstanding example of late nineteenth-century factory architecture. Lysaght acquired the works and site from Acraman and Company for iron galvanising operations. T R Lysaght died before the building's completion; the construction drawings are signed by Drake. The company subsequently became significant in the development of colonial vernacular architecture, manufacturing corrugated iron and pre-fabricated buildings at its Netham site.