The Great Gatehouse

BRISTOL

ST5872NW COLLEGE GREEN 901-1/15/73 (South side) 04/03/77 The Great Gatehouse

GV I

Gatehouse. C12 archway built for Augustinian abbey founded 1140, included in late C15 gatehouse, restored and extended mid C19 by J Pearson. Limestone ashlar with exterior stacks and a lead roof. Single-depth plan. Norman style gateways, Perpendicular Gothic style gatehouse and tower. 3 storeys; 3-window range. A central gatehouse has a finely carved semicircular-arched C12 gateway, with twisted columns to an arch with beaded chevrons, and an architrave with Celtic-style interlacing. The S side has 3 orders with cushion capitals. C19 buttresses, C15 inscribed cornice, and rosettes to the spandrels, beneath a 2-storey canted oriel with 4-light mullion and transom windows, raised flowers to the panels beneath, and flanking 2-storey statue niches with canted canopies and statues of kings. A band of quatrefoil panels below a cornice, blind panelling to the crenellated parapet with crocketed pinnacles to the angles. The single-storey gatehouse to the right has a smaller pedestrian archway, similar mouldings, but with the architrave inside the arch. C15 first-floor mullion window with Tudor-arched heads. C19 single-storey block to the left has an angle buttress, and a 2-centre doorway in the return with a crocketed hood, and ridged door. Behind is a C15 three-stage tower with moulded strings and matching panelled parapet, and an exterior stack with panelled top. In the re-entrant is an octagonal stair turret to a panelled top, and a crocketed ogee cap. The rear elevation has 4 storeys of 3-light mullion windows. INTERIOR: the main archway has 2 quadripartite vaulted bays separated by a chevron-moulded arch; the sides have arcades of pointed-arched niches formed from intersecting semicircular arches, with columns to cushion capitals and rope mouldings. The Gatehouse has upstairs rooms with Tudor-arched fireplaces, and oriels with tracery panels to the soffits; stone winder stair. The decoration of the arches and inner sides of the archway, with the Chapter House (qv), is among the earliest use of the pointed arch, and '...anticipated the impending Gothic' (Gomme). (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 386).

Listing NGR: ST5828472684