Description

BRISTOL

ST5772NW CLIFTON HILL, Clifton
901-1/14/775 (North side)
08/01/59 No.3
Chesterfield and attached front
garden wall
(Formerly Listed as:
CLIFTON HILL
(North side)
No.3
Chesterfield)

GV II*

Formerly known as: No.3 Clifton Court CLIFTON GREEN Clifton.
House, now nursing home. 1742. Possibly by William Halfpenny.
Limestone ashlar and copper-slag blocks, gable stacks and a
slate hipped roof. Double-depth plan. Palladian style. 2
storeys, attic and basement; 11-window range.
A fine symmetrical front has a pedimented 3-window centre
broken forward, and lower 3-window side wings; the centre has
a banded ground floor and 4 Ionic pilasters above to a
pulvinated frieze. Outer corners have rusticated ground-floor
quoin strips, quoins above, and parapet. Later pedimented
Tuscan porch to a 2-leaf door.
The centre has recessed ground-floor windows with cambered
heads, middle segmental and flanking plain pediments to the
second floor, with keyed architraves to the outer windows and
sunken panels over the second floor. The wings are set back,
with plain cornice bands and parapets. The right-hand has
enlarged ground-floor windows and blind ones above with keyed
architraves; the left-hand has similar surrounds, and a C19
right-hand doorway, now glazed, with a bracketed pediment.
Plate-glass sashes.
The right return to the main block is of copper-slag blocks
with brick window dressings, the left return is rendered. The
rear has two C19 canted bays.
INTERIOR: a good interior includes an entrance hall divided by
an elliptical arch with fluted pilasters from a central stair
hall, with a left-hand open dogleg stair with column
balusters, a moulded, ramped rail and wide curtail.
Fully-panelled right-hand rooms connected by an arch with
fluted Ionic pilasters, panelled, arched recesses, good marble
fire surrounds with rocaille woodwork, an eared overmantel in
the front room with foliate festoons and bracketed pediment;
doorways with raised pediment, and 4-panel mahogany doors.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached coursed rubble retaining wall
encloses front garden, with a left-hand blocked
semicircular-arched doorway with Gibbs surround.
A notable early villa development on the hilltop in Clifton,
with a good interior. The use of slag blocks in a polite house
is very uncommon.
(Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural
History: Bristol: 1979-: 151; Ison W: The Georgian Buildings
of Bristol: Bath: 1952-: 38).

Listing NGR: ST5732272920

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17553041

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

• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)