Description

BRISTOL

ST5873SE SMALL STREET, Centre
901-1/11/630 (North East side)
08/01/59 Nos.22 AND 23
Albion Chambers and attached
railings and gate
(Formerly Listed as:
SMALL STREET
(North East side)
Nos.22 AND 23
and Albion Chambers)

GV II

Includes: Albion Chambers BROAD STREET Centre.
Offices, now restaurants and offices. 1843. Brick with
limestone dressings and lateral stacks, stuccoed courtyard
blocks with brick ridge stacks and hipped pantile roofs.
4 double-depth blocks arranged symmetrically to the sides of a
T-shaped courtyard. Greek Revival-style details.
4 storeys; 5-window range. A symmetrical Small Street
elevation has ground-floor shop fronts and a semicircular arch
to a through passage, cornice and ashlar parapet. The archway
has a moulded archivolt with outer moulding of palmettes, a
shell-like fanlight panel containing an acroterion above the
lintel, and panelled jambs, repeated at the ends of the shop
fronts either side, with plate-glass windows. The windows
above have architraves, eared and battered with cornices and
ashlar aprons on the first floor with a central eared square
window, battered on the second floor, to plate-glass sashes.
The left return is random limestone ashlar in the manner of
the neighbouring former Assizes (not included), and was
rebuilt 1865-70 to enclose the space in front of it.
The courtyard has matching blocks facing across the sides of
the courtyard, and a third across the end, with a through
passage to Broad Street. Each of 3 storeys; 5-window ranges
with a coped parapet, the side pair with an eared, battered
architrave and 6-panel doors, that to the E end with an eared,
segmental-arched architrave and large key to the passage,
small end windows with raised surrounds, with curved,
wrought-iron brackets to a lamp over the doorway, and a clock
over the first-floor window set in an ornate square panel;
8/8-pane sashes with fine bars, some replaced with horned and
plate-glass sashes.
INTERIOR: the Small Street block has an entrance in the
right-hand side of the passage; details include a stone
cantilevered oval open-well winder stair, with wrought-iron
railings, and floors of stone laid on iron I-section beams;
second-floor fire surround with panelled jambs and mantle to
roundels; brick groin vaults in basement. The 2 side blocks
have similar open dogleg stairs, and the E block has an
open-well stair above the W entrance; panelled reveals to
6-panel doors.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached cast-iron spear-headed railings
and gate with palmette finials to basement steps in the N end
of the courtyard, and to the NE entrance from Broad Street.
An advanced design of fire-proof offices, formally arranged
round a courtyard.
(Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural
History: Bristol: 1979-: 252).

Listing NGR: ST5882873073

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26498171

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
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  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)