Machine Shop

BRISTOL

ST5772 UNDERFALL YARD, Floating Harbour 901-1/41/1314 (South side) Machine shop

GV II*

Machine shop. c1885. Extended early C20. Brick with a tiled double-pile hipped roof. Open plan. Single storey, with a 2-storey; 2-window C20 extension. A plain shed with corbelled eaves, sliding doors at each end, with a hipped C20 office extension along the left-hand end with a 7-window-range return elevation of metal casements. An octagonal chimney attached to the right-hand return. INTERIOR: comprises boiler and engine houses, blacksmith's and engineer's shops. Much original machinery survives, including steam-powered plant from the mid 1880's, for planing, slotting, punching-and-shearing, a long-bed lathe and steam hammer, wall-mounted line shafting and a Tangye horizontal engine and Cornish boiler. HISTORICAL NOTE: built on land reclaimed behind Jessops' 1809 Floating Harbour dam, and named after Brunel's Under Fall culvert of 1832 for removing silt into the New Cut. '..nowhere else is the essential character of the dock landcape preserved so completely' (Lord and Southam). (BIAS Journal: Bristol: 1968-: 20; Lord J and Southam J: The Floating Harbour: Bristol: 1983-: 66).

Listing NGR: ST5719472108