Merchant Tailors' Hall

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 23 March 2023 to amend the address, remove superfluous source details and reformat the text to current standards.

ST5873SE 901-1/11/679

BRISTOL TAILOR'S COURT (North side) Merchant Tailors' Hall

(Formerly listed as Merchant Tailors' Hall, TAYLOR'S COURT, BRISTOL, Centre)

08/01/59

GV II* Guild meeting hall, now offices. 1740-1, converted c1950. Rendered limestone ashlar, roof not visible. Single-depth Great Hall and right-hand stair block. Early Georgian style. Three storey; seven window range. A two window right-hand service block set forward, Great Hall to the left with raised basement to a plat band, and a moulded coping ramped up to the left; the right-hand entrance has a fine late C17 shell hood with painted Arms of the guild with flanking winged cupids and a head of John the Baptist, on acanthus brackets, pulvinated frieze and architrave to double six-panel doors. Plain surrounds to square basement windows, with entrances at each end, separated by angled coach bollards; windows have architraves and pulvinated friezes, cornices to the right-hand section with 9/9-pane sashes and a small six-pane window over the door, and alternate segmental and triangular pediments to tall 20/20-pane sashes to two storey windows on the Great Hall. Thick glazing bars. In the re-entrant is a conical lead hopper and downpipe.

INTERIOR: entrance hall with panelled wainscot to a ground floor room with full panelling to two walls, and a dogleg stair with uncut string and column balusters and moulded rail; the former hall has an inserted C20 floor, with a rear bolection-moulded fire surround with Bristol Delft tiled back and panelled overmantel to a cornice; bolection-moulded architraves. It formerly had double doors from the north end beneath a musicians' gallery, high panelled dado and deep coved ceiling. Now connected internally with No.41 Broad Street (qv).

Ison suggests the hood may be older and may have come from the C17 hall which it replaced. The court in front is flagged with Pennant cobbles, and forms an important part of the historic setting.

Listing NGR: ST5881873143