Quay Head House

Quay Head House is an office building dating from 1884, designed by Foster and Wood for the Bristol Municipal Charities. It is constructed of brick with limestone and terracotta dressings, brick gable stacks, and a slate roof. The building is of double-depth plan and is built in a Queen Anne style incorporating Dutch Renaissance influence. It has two storeys, an attic, and a basement, with a five-window range to the front.

The symmetrical facade features a moulded plinth, entablature bands to each floor, a first-floor sill band, and a tall parapet with a central gabled dormer and outer balustrade. The left-hand doorway has panelled plinths to consoles, entablature blocks, and a swan's neck pediment with a central cartouche, alongside an architrave, plate-glass overlight and double doors. Ground-floor windows have scrolled brick aprons, segmental heads with drips over, and key detailing to the entablature band. The band is flanked by console blocks beneath first-floor pilaster strips, fluted above the plinths, and raised blocks in the upper entablature. First-floor windows have aprons with painted shields and rubbed brick heads, with outer windows set between doubled pilasters, raised eared and shouldered surrounds, a festoon to the ends of the entablature, and paterae to the middle. Windows have moulded exposed frames to cross window casements. The large dormer has terracotta panels in the parapet, ogee consoles on each side, pilasters to a cornice, panelled pilasters to the top section with a central semicircular-arched, fluted panel, and a triangular pediment with a mullion window. A tall terracotta balustrade with urn finials tops the building, with dormers behind featuring leaded hipped ogee roofs to paired 9/9-pane sashes. The building also has ogee gable copings with tall stacks and a steep roof.

Inside, the entrance hall and stairwell are panelled, featuring fluted pilasters to a cornice, an open-well stair with turned balusters, square newels and curved finials, and pendents. On the first floor, the stair has arcades of elliptical arches on fluted pilasters whilst the building also incorporates panelled shutters, 4-panel doors, and cornices.