Clifton Library And Attached Front Railings And Gates

Clifton Library, originally a school founded in 1852, is located on Princess Victoria Street in Bristol. The building was designed by C. Underwood and was rebuilt in 1877 by Charles Hansom, with additions made in 1891 by W.T. Bernard. It is constructed of limestone ashlar and features a U-shaped double-depth plan in the Italianate style. The library is two storeys tall with a basement and has an 11-window range.

The symmetrical front has later narrow projecting wings with clasping pilasters leading to a coved cornice and panelled parapet. The centre is taller and features a cornice and parapet, along with a central segmental pediment. There are sill and impost bands, with those on the wings set in a panel between the pilasters. The semicircular-arched doorways on the returns have 20th-century doors. The windows feature semicircular moulded archivolts, with two small windows on the ground floor of the wings and taller single second-floor windows. The centre has three two-window ground-floor arcades and smaller three-window first-floor arcades, with "CHRIST CHURCH SCHOOL" inscribed in oval panels between.

Inside, much of the interior has been rebuilt, but it retains stone dogleg stairs with wrought-iron railings in the right-hand wing and roof trusses with chamfered queen posts. The forecourt between the wings is enclosed by attached cast-iron gates and an ashlar wall with fleur-de-lys head railings. Historically, this building is significant as one of the few pre-Board schools in Bristol.