City Museum And Art Gallery

City Museum and Art Gallery

Museum and art gallery, built in 1898 by F.S. Waller for Margaret Hall as a memorial to her husband William Edwin Price. The building was extended to the rear by the same architect. It is constructed of coursed, rock-faced rubble with ashlar features and details, beneath a red plain tile roof surmounted by a timber cupola with a copper dome. The design follows an eclectic early Renaissance style inspired by the work of T.G. Jackson. The building comprises a large rectangular main block with an entrance hall wing at the south end.

The exterior has two storeys and cellars. On the main block, the ground floor has no fenestration and forms a tall podium to the upper floor. The front of the main block is symmetrical, with five bays defined by piers at ground-floor level and pilasters at first-floor level, with wider clasping piers and pilasters at each corner. Above the central bay sits an ashlar-fronted dormer, with octagonal cupolas above the parapet at the outer corners and a larger central cupola on the roof ridge.

The ground floor features a tall rock-faced plinth with two offsets, both capped by a chamfered ashlar course. Below the first-floor sill level runs a corniced ashlar band incorporating an apron panel below the large three-light ashlar framed and mullioned leaded window in the central bay and similar two-light windows in the other bays. All windows have central transoms and semicircular arched heads with keystones to the upper lights. Above is a crowning ashlar entablature which breaks forward slightly over each window, with a carved panel in the frieze. Above the cornice of each projection is an anthemion with flanking scrolls carved in relief against the parapet, except for the central bay which has a blank heraldic shield with dragon crest in relief against the front of the dormer under an arched canopy.

On the left side of the main block is a lower, slightly recessed bay with an elaborate applied frontispiece in two stages. The rusticated lower stage is crowned by the continuation of the corniced band on the main block to each side of the entrance doorway, which is framed by pilasters with moulded corbels supporting a shell hood with a scalloped edge. The hood projects in front of the central panel on the upper stage; the panel is framed by pilasters and entablature with a swan-neck pediment above and parapets on each side supporting scrolls against the sides of the panel. The wide double doorway has rusticated jambs and a cambered arched head with a projecting keystone.

The interior contains original joinery and staircase from 1898. The most important internal feature is the main ceiling at eaves level, coved and coffered with three sun-burst centrepieces, dating from 1892–93. The interior also includes part of the scheduled Roman colonia wall. A main staircase was added in 1957 by R.D. Fitzsimmons when the first floor was built.

The building was originally constructed as the Price Memorial Hall, built as a lecture hall for the Gloucester Science and Art Society between 1892 and 1893. In 1902 it was adapted for use as a museum and art gallery for the Corporation of the City of Gloucester.