Western House

BRISTOL

ST5873NW COTHAM ROAD, Cotham 901-1/4/1166 (North side) 01/11/66 Western House (Formerly Listed as: COTHAM ROAD (North side) University Board Office and No.1)

GV II*

Formerly known as: Western College COTHAM ROAD. Congregationalist college, now offices. 1905-6. By Henry Dare Bryan. Limestone ashlar, ashlar stacks and tiled roof with shingled lanterns. Butterfly plan with 3 linked single-depth blocks. Arts and Crafts style. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys; 11-window range. A wide symmetrical front with angled wings to a central porch with flanking octagonal towers and a gabled hall behind. A keyed semicircular-arched doorway has Jacobean Doric columns with strapwork lower sections, a Doric entablature and 2-leaf oak doors. Above is a 4-light mullion window flanked by Jacobean-style pilasters to a pulvinated frieze and cornice, and tall parapet. The towers have a cornice with spouts on grotesque head corbels and an openwork parapet, with steep pyramidal shingle-hung roofs with lead finials. Behind is the hall gable with a small 3-light window, and a large shingle-hung louvred ridge topped by an octagonal one with a weather vane. Ground-floor stone mullion and 2 transom leaded casements, with 6-light widows either side of the porch, and 9-light windows in the wings; one window in from the ends are wide canted bays that extend up through the overhanging eaves, with a central 9-light window on both floors, to a parapet and a tile-hung dormer; on the ridge behind are small lanterns. The end gables have octagonal clasping buttresses with barleysugar tops and ball finials, large external stacks with tiled bases to 3 diagonally-set stacks, small panels carved with an open book, and lion-head gutter spouts. The rear gable of the hall has a large mullion and transom window. INTERIOR: fine and complete, a full-height aisled central hall with a timber gallery on elliptical arches and carved Doric columns, to a semicircular vaulted roof with vine-carved ribs; 3/4 panelled wainscotting throughout, with good doorcases to the rear of the hall with fluted pilasters to a segmental pediment; stair hall to the left has an open-well stair with a pulvinated uncut string, strapwork carving, turned balusters and square newels, and a panelled ceiling; the Common Room has a wide Tudor arch with stopped jambs above a small Tudor-arched fireplace, and a fitted dresser with a dentil cornice; Tudor-arched fireplaces in other rooms; 1/2-glazed doors; the service block to the rear has 2 built-in dressers, a tiled pantry and a 'Gradient' range. A fine example in this style by a distinguished local architect, and considered to be Bristol's best Arts and Crafts building. (The Builder: 1905-: 276; Gray A S: Edwardian Architecture: London: 1985-: 126).

Listing NGR: ST5819673920