Haberfield House And Attached Balustrades And Enclosing Walls

This is a terrace of six houses, originally built as almshouses and later converted into six houses, each containing four flats. They were constructed in 1889 by T.S. Pope, and are built of brick with limestone dressings, a party wall ridge and gable stacks, and a Cornish slate roof. The buildings are arranged on a double-depth plan and are in a Neo Georgian style.

Each house is two storeys high with a basement, and has a three-window front. The terrace has a symmetrical design, with each house articulated by brick pilasters. Each has a projecting, two-storey, pedimented porch with ball finials, a continuous ground-floor string course and cornice, a first-floor impost band, and a bracketed eaves cornice. The porches include pilasters and doorways set under segmental arches with scrolled key stones, plate-glass overlights, and six-panel doors. The windows are mullioned, with ovolo-moulded reveals and 2/2-pane horned sashes. Tall stacks with cornices are present. The rear elevation has plain brick openings and side doorways. Gable ends have horizontal mouldings articulated by pilasters into six sections, with a pediment over the central section, featuring a raised panel with brackets and ball finials.

Inside, each house has a central hall and a front dogleg staircase with turned balusters, a moulded rail, and a half-landing with a two-leaf door featuring stained glass.

Attached front basement areas have balustrades made of square-section terracotta balusters and panelled piers. A surrounding wall extends approximately 200 metres around the garden and rear entrance yard. It includes a terracotta balustrade over a panelled retaining wall, an ashlar south entrance with a stepped gable, a heraldic panel, and wrought-iron gates. Tall piers with wide cornices are at the north entrance, and spear-headed railings are in place.

These almshouses were originally Lady Haberfield’s Almshouses, named after the patron, and represent a late but well-composed and detailed example of Bristol’s fine almshouses.