The Granary And Attached Area Walls

BRISTOL

ST5872NE WELSH BACK 901-1/16/341 (West side) 08/01/59 No.32 The Granary and attached area walls

II*

Includes: No.51 QUEEN CHARLOTTE STREET. Granary, now offices. Dated 1869. By Ponton and Gough. Red Cattybrook brick with black and white brick and limestone dressings, brick lateral stacks and a slate hipped roof. Rectangular plan. 'Bristol Byzantine' style, Ruskinian Venetian Gothic with structural polychromy. 7 storeys and 3 attic storeys; 11-window range. A steep, symmetrical block with a battered plinth of engineering bricks to the ground-floor arcade of 2-centred arches, strings to the first, 2nd, 4th and 5th floors, a Lombard frieze and machicolated cornice under a crenellated parapet with forked merlons; deeply-set unglazed upper windows are 3:5:3 placed well in from the corners, with rounded-brick surrounds and striped arches, and ashlar impost bands. The ground-floor arcade has a black and white brick ogee hood and oculi set in between; doorways at either end have semicircular openings with ogee hoods in recessed panels, and at the corners are paired granite half-columns with ashlar bases and foliate caps; C20 doors and sashes. The first-floor has semicircular-arched openings, blocked below the spring by square panels, 3 of them carrying carved shields; 2-storey arched recesses to the 2nd and 3rd floors have patterned openwork panels; 4th floor elliptical-arched openings with pierced panels; top floors set in shallow recesses, with shouldered flat arches to the 5th floor, and arcaded semicircular arches on the 6th floor on paired ashlar shafts with deep capitals. The end returns have matching openings in 5-window ranges. Chimneys to the front and left return have tumbled-in sides; the steep roof has narrow gables to the right end and a short rear left-hand cross wing, hipped dormers behind the parapet and in the hip, and decorative ridge tiles. INTERIOR not inspected. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached area walls to Queen Charlotte Street elevation. Considered the finest example of the C19 Bristol warehouse style known as Bristol Byzantine, for its supposed links with mercantile architecture of the E Mediterranean. Functional details such as the hoist arrangements and ventilation are imaginatively developed into the decorative scheme for the building. (Lord J and Southam J: The Floating Harbour: Bristol: 1983-: 94; Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 375).

Listing NGR: ST5888372673