Bristol Channel Yacht Club

Bristol Channel Yacht Club

A two-and-a-half-storey club house built in a variety of materials and influenced by Norman Shaw's Old English style. The lower storey is pebble dashed with brick dressings around the openings; the upper storey is tile hung, the gables are timber-framed, and the roofs are tiled. The asymmetrical front elevation features a canted bay set back from the left angle, carried up above the eaves to form a short snuffer-topped turret. To the right is a wide full-height splayed bay under a hipped roof. The main roof is hipped to the right and gabled to the left, with eaves projecting on brackets. There are brick end stacks and a ridge stack to the left of centre. The wooden-framed windows have mullions and transoms with casements, small panes above the transoms and large panes below.

The front elevation displays French doors flanked by cross windows in the right bay's lower storey, all under stone lintels. At the centre is the main round-headed doorway with a stone surround, stressed keystone and hood mould, fitted with double boarded doors. To its left is a segmental-headed three-light window. Above is a balcony with a roof carried on four wooden posts with four-centred arches; the balustrade features shaped balusters. The balcony is accessed by French doors to the right with flanking windows and narrower French doors on the left side. Above is a four-light gabled roof dormer. The left bay has mullioned and transomed windows in each storey, above which are timber framing and brackets supporting the swept eaves of the turret, which is topped with a weathervane.

The right side wall has a first-floor oriel window modified to form a fire escape door. The left gable end has one-light windows to the centre, cross windows to their left under segmental heads, and in the lower storey a small sash window further left. Behind on the left side is a lower two-storey wing (the caretaker's house) with mullioned sash windows and a half-lit door in a lean-to porch. The rear wall is dominated by a four-light window left of centre lighting the staircase.

Internally, an entrance lobby has half-lit doors with the club insignia etched into the glass. The central entrance hall features a panelled plaster ceiling and panelled doors with plain pilasters and panelling above the lintels. On the left side is a small fireplace with green relief-moulded decorative tiles. The staircase has shaped balusters and newels up to a landing with a similar balustrade, lit by a four-light window in the rear wall with stained glass recording the establishment of the club in 1875 and the erection of the club house in 1904. In the lower storey, the room to the left is the dining room with plain plaster panels to the ceiling. The reading room to the right has a plaster panelled ceiling with curved intersecting ribs. A wood-framed fireplace features a projecting mantelpiece with plain moulded pilasters and consoles with lion's heads beneath a cornice. At the rear end is a panelled bar front with seats to the right and left with high shaped ends.

On the upper left side is the Fairwood Suite, which has a plainer wooden fireplace surround with fluted pilasters. The Billiard Room on the upper right has window seats, a fireplace with plain jambs enriched with Art Nouveau style low-relief foliage, and three round-backed niches to the mantelpiece.