University Of Bristol, Geography Department

The Geography Department of the University of Bristol is a university building constructed in 1892 by F Bligh Bond. It is designed in the Collegiate Tudor Gothic Revival style, featuring red Pennant rubble with limestone dressings, gable stacks, and a slate roof. The building has an L-shaped double-depth plan, is two storeys tall with a basement, and has a six-window range.

The front includes a two-window gable and a three-window block to the left, with a canted bay in the angle. Architectural details include a moulded plinth, sill and lintel string courses, a cornice with carved heads and gargoyles, and a crenellated parapet with coped gables. The right-hand gable features clasping octagonal buttresses with cyma pepperpots topped with large crockets. The ground floor has three-light mullion and transom windows with cinquefoil heads, while the first floor showcases curvilinear tracery. An exterior chimney breast with three octagonal ashlar stacks is set against a crocketed gable.

The remaining windows on the ground floor mirror those on the left, separated by buttresses, and there is a Tudor-arched doorway in the right-hand bay beneath a two-centred arch with an open work parapet above. A full-height canted bay is present in the re-entrant.

The interior was largely rebuilt in the mid-20th century after a fire, featuring an open-well stair with a moulded rail. Originally, this building served as the Medical School and was part of the first structures for the new university, initially designed by C Hansom and later adapted by Bond after Hansom's death.