Church House

BRISTOL

ST5873SE WHITSON STREET 901-1/11/347 (East side) 04/03/77 Church House (Formerly Listed as: WHITSON STREET Church House, Vicarage of the Church of St James)

GV II*

House. Dated 1666 on front plaque, altered C19. Rendered Pennant rubble with limestone dressings, timber-framed right-hand wall, rubble lateral and axial stacks and slate cross gabled roof. Single front and rear rooms divided by a stack with fireplaces each side, and right-hand C19 stair. 2 storeys, attic and basement; 2-window range. A steep gable parapeted each side, with limestone quoins to the right-hand side and ashlar dressings to the attic window, and late C19 tooled ashlar surround to small right-hand doorway. C18 6/6-pane sashes in flush frames, with paired C19 plate-glass sashes to the attic, and late C17 keyed oculus in the top of the gable. 2 small shields over the doorway inscribed ETA and 1666. INTERIOR: a fine late C17 ground-floor full-width front room with full bolection-moulded panelling to a cornice, a panelled overmantel to left-hand fire surround, a fine carved overmantel to the rear with a Doric entablature beneath a central cartouche with helm and rocaille, and side sections set back with carved classical allegorical figures holding shields. A fine plaster ceiling in 2 sections with detailed panels, pomegranates and moulded bosses, separated by a panelled Jacobean-style beam with strapwork, and a frieze above the cornice with adorsal griffins; panelling flanking fireplace and overmantel in the rear ground-floor room; the first-floor front room has a small Tudor-arched cupboard on the front second-floor room to the left and a cyma-moulded and stopped beam; diagonal-braced timber-framed wall with re-used timbers. Plasterwork of similar style and content to that in the Llandoger Trow, King Street (qv), though better quality. Possibly part of a house with several gables, of which that to the Church of St James to the right (qv) may previously have been one.

Listing NGR: ST5887973480