Taylor Maxwell House And Attached Front Balustrade

BRISTOL

ST5673SE THE PROMENADE, Clifton 901-1/1/1076 (East side) 08/01/59 Taylor Maxwell House and attached front balustrade (Formerly Listed as: THE PROMENADE, Clifton Down Crosfields House)

GV II*

Formerly known as: Avonside House THE PROMENADE Clifton Down. House, now office. 1839. By RS Pope. Limestone ashlar, rendered side and rear, lateral and ridge stacks, and slate hipped roof. Double-depth plan. Neoclassical style. 3 storeys and basement; 5-window range. A symmetrical front has projecting 1-window wings with attached ground-floor Greek Doric columns set back between banded pilaster strips to an entablature, wide pilaster strips above, to a full-width heavy bracketed cornice, outer pediments with tall parapets and wreaths in the tympana, and a parapet with raised central sections. The centre is banded on the ground floor with a distyle-in-antis Doric entrance, the doorway set back with an impost band and C20 door, and a shallow right-hand bay with banded jambs. First-floor windows are set in recesses with Corinthian pilasters, the outer second-floor windows recessed with a plain mullion, the middle ones with battered raised surrounds. First-floor cantilevered stone balcony across the middle has cast-iron balustrade of wreaths. 6/6-pane sashes, mullion and transom casements first-floor outer windows. The left return in 2 sections separated by a gap, outer windows with banded ground-floor jambs, plain pilasters above to the cornice, and a central 2-storey panel above the ground floor with waterleaf moulding and anthemia in the corners. Rear elevation is a 5-window range with a central ground-floor bay articulated by fluted pilasters, a semicircular-arched second-floor stair window with a stone balcony, both pierced with rectangular holes with diagonal cast-iron railings; tall left-hand oriel on iron stanchions with tripartite window. INTERIOR: lobby to a rear central stair hall with an open dogleg stone stair with moulded cast-iron balusters, and a large fluted newel with a ball finial; left-hand central lateral dogleg service stair with uncut string, stick balusters and column newels; panelled reveals and 6-panel doors. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: a central raised terrace across the front has attached battered balusters between the wings, dies to either end of a central stair flight, with plain urn finials. A well-detailed house making good use of the corner site. Part of a remarkable group including Promenade House (qv), Engineer's House (qv) and Trafalgar House (qv) extending NW from Litfield House, Litfield Place (qv). (Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 268; Mowl T: To Build The Second City: Bristol: 1991-: 162).

Listing NGR: ST5659073561