City Museum And Art Gallery And Attached Front Walls

BRISTOL

ST5873SW QUEEN'S ROAD 901-1/10/228 (North East side) 01/11/66 City Museum and Art Gallery and attached front walls (Formerly Listed as: QUEENS ROAD (North side) City Museum and Art Gallery)

GV II*

Museum and gallery. Dated 1899-1904. By Sir F Wills. Limestone ashlar, roof not visible. Rectangular open plan in 2 sections. Edwardian Baroque style. 3 storeys; 3-window range. A monumental front has a deeply projecting centre over a porte cochere. Vermiculated outer quoins to a frieze, modillion cornice and parapet; centre has a rock-faced plinth to a band, vermiculated ground floor to a plat band, and paired Ionic clasping pilasters. The centre section breaks forward, with paired Ionic columns from the first floor to a pediment surmounted by an outer balustrade and central pedestal with Beaux Arts statuary. First-floor half-domed 5-light mullion bow, under a raised panel inscribed THE GIFT OF SIR HENRY WILLIAM WILLS BART TO HIS FELLOW CITIZENS 1904, and a large carving of the city arms. To each side are relief carvings of artists' palettes. Outer semicircular-arched 3-light mullion windows and a key, with stained glass; above are swagged panels. The porte cochere has semicircular arches front and side with coved reveals and large keys giving on to a vaulted area, with a semicircular-arched doorway with coved reveals and a cartouche inscribed 1902, and 2 pairs of half-glazed doors. Side windows have 3 lights and moulded lintels. Festoon panels over the outer windows. INTERIOR: 2 large halls with barrel-vaulted glazed roofs, separated by a double staircase. The front hall is 6 bays long and 3 wide, a balcony on carved figure brackets above the door extends round the sides, and an arcade above with piers to the roof; reliefs of painters' names to each side bay in swagged panels. An imperial stair reached through an arched screen, of Corinthian columns to a second-floor balustrade, supported over a first-floor balcony by marble columns. Behind is a further stair with paired columns under a Diocletian wndow. The rear hall is 4 bays long, a ground-floor arcade of segmental arches, a Doric frieze and first-floor arcade, with paired Corinthian columns separated by paired semicircular arches on marble columns, and a balustrade. Each end has a Venetian arch under a Diocletian window. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached rock-faced walls to the front have 4 good lanterns on pedestals. The building was paid for by Sir H Wills, and is Bristol's only major public building of the period. A well contrived and lit interior to match the weight of the front; '..a free Baroque design of magnificent proportions' (Crick). (Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 391; Crick C: Victorian Buildings in Bristol: Bristol: 1975-: 62; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 417).

Listing NGR: ST5805973230