Description

BRISTOL

ST5872NE QUEEN SQUARE
901-1/16/219 (North side)
04/03/77 Custom House and attached rear area
wall and piers
(Formerly Listed as:
QUEEN SQUARE
(North side)
The Custom House)

GV II*

Customs house. 1836. By Sidney Smirke. Limestone ashlar, ridge
and party wall stacks, roof not visible.
Double-depth plan. Neoclassical style. 2 storeys, attic and
basement; 5-window range. A symmetrical front has a plinth to
a sill band, plat band, first-floor sill band and impost band,
frieze and bracketed cornice, and parapet with raised dies.
Banded ground floor, rusticated quoins on the first floor.
A large doorway has paired pilasters to an entablature, with a
plinth above with raised ends, and a carving of the Royal Coat
of Arms; 9-pane overlight and 2-leaf 4-panel door, with an
inner 2-leaf 6-panel door with glazed round central panels.
6/6-pane ground-floor sashes, and tall semicircular-arched
first-floor windows with moulded archivolts, to 6/9-pane
sashes.
Right-hand return has 3-window range, with 3/3-pane attic
sashes set below the cornice, and basement windows with grille
to pavement lights. Rear has projecting right-hand section,
and gabled left-hand with semicircular-arched windows.
INTERIOR: traces in basement of the early C18 house destroyed
in the riots, with tooled Pennant walls and timbers, and
security doors. Also a C19 range and cast-iron fireplace.
Central top-lit stair well has c1950 open-well stair;
principal first-floor room has 2 large acanthus ceiling roses,
cornice, and doorway with consoles to a pediment; dogleg
winder service stair to the attic has stick balusters and
column newels; doorways with panelled reveals and soffits, and
6-panel doors.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached rusticated Pennant ashlar walls
and piers to rear area.
Replaced the Custom House destroyed in the Reform Bill riots
of 1831.
(Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural
History: Bristol: 1979-: 237).

Listing NGR: ST5878472650

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q96465205

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

• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)