Former Tramway Generating Station

The former Tramway Generating Station, now used as offices, was built in 1899 by W Curtis Green for the Bristol Tramways and Carriage Company. This building is constructed from red brick with limestone ashlar dressings and features an open plan layout in a Baroque style. It stands five storeys tall, with a prominent pedimented end that includes a large Venetian window with a splayed, coffered central arch and narrow flanking windows. Below this is a moulded entablature that forms an ashlar band around the building, with smaller windows above set in sunken panels with architraves and floating cornices. Above, a second band features roundels at the base of four Ionic columns that are flush with the wall, separated by a balustrade in front of a large lunette window. The pediment is adorned with dentils, egg-and-dart motifs, and modillions, containing a narrow louvred light beneath a shell within a shallow niche topped with an arched cornice and a balustraded parapet along the splayed left-hand corner, which also has a small doorway. The side elevations display a five-window range of sunken panels between brick pilasters with Ionic capitals, featuring three-light ground-floor windows, first-floor lunettes, Venetian windows on the third floor, and keyed oculi above. The interior was modified around 1980. W Curtis Green also designed the shells of several power stations, including those in Hove and Chiswick, with this station being regarded as his finest work.