Wca Warehouse

ST5872 901-1/42/233

BRISTOL, REDCLIFF BACKS (West side), WCA Warehouse

04/03/77

GV II

Warehouse. 1909-12. By WA Brown. Concrete frame with blue and red brick facing and render. Open plan. 4 storeys and penthouse; 15-window range. Symmetrical river frontage divided by wide pilasters, of blue brick to the ground and red to the upper floors with concrete quoins to the middle, and horizontal concrete bands at floor heights. Semicircular windows with central doorways fill the outer sections on the ground floor; the inner ones were glazed above roller blinds, and are now partially bricked up; the upper floors have 3 rectangular windows to the outer sections and 3-storey cantilevered goods hoists to the 3 centre bays on curved brackets from the third floor, with moulded panels and mullion windows separated by sill bands; either side are narrow windows, and below on the second floor is a 2-leaf door. Above a modillion cornice are the hoist rooms, and a raised central semicircular pediment with a tall, square bay window and WCA REDCLIFF WHARF inscribed; either side is a parapet, ramped above the pilasters with rendered panels. The entrance in the Redcliff Backs elevation is set in a rendered semicircular moulded arch with swag in the spandrels below a shield with feathers inscribed ICH DIEN, and a central timber door frame with a glazed segmental pediment. INTERIOR: primary and secondary beams carried on columns, and a hollow pot floor, with a central stair well to the river side round a lift shaft. An early use of reinforced concrete, on the Perfector principle. The warehouse was linked to WV Gough's adjoining grain mill, now destroyed. (Lord J and Southam J: The Floating Harbour: Bristol: 1983-: 90; BIAS Journal: Cocks D: The WCA Warehouse: Bristol: 1974-: 4-8).

Listing NGR: ST5901172515