Description

ST5872NW
901-1/15/72

BRISTOL,
COLLEGE GREEN (West side),
Council House and attached railings and piers

(Formerly Listed as:
COLLEGE GREEN
The Council House)

19/03/81

II*

Council house. 1935-1952. By Vincent Harris. Concrete frame
clad with very wide, thin bricks, with Portland stone
dressings and a leaded hipped roof. Concave axial double-depth
plan. Neo-Georgian style.
2 storeys, attic and basement; 38-window range. A very wide,
concave bowed front has a stone plinth, first-floor plat band,
moulded coping in front of the recessed attic. Full-height
porte cocheres to each end, similar 2-storey one to central
main entrance. Outer ones have full-height semicircular
arches, single-storey side ones, to semicircular-arched
doorways with 2-leaf doors swept down to the centre, and
first-floor windows with Corinthian columns to pediments on
balconies with balustrades. The middle porte cochere is almost
detached, with an octagonal base to an ashlar dome,
semicircular arches to 3 sides, and blind flanking blocks 4
windows wide. 6/6-pane horned sashes in exposed frames,
alternate 3 windows on the ground floor have moulded stone
architraves. A very steep and high roof with gilded unicorns
to the corners of the end blocks. The rear elevation has
2-storey tetrastyle-in-antis loggias at the ends, linked by
pilastrades round to the central projecting block, which has a
pilastrade below very large 25/25-pane sashes, and flanking
towers with McFall sculptures on top.
INTERIOR: sparsely decorated in monumental manner and faced in
plain ashlar; details include a central axial passage, and
good lamps in the entrance lobby, which has a marble floor;
complete original fittings throughout, those to the Committee
Rooms being of particular note; horological clock in entrance
hall; painted ceilings in the Council Room by John Armstrong
on the theme of Bristol and its history, and in the Conference
Room by WT Monnington on the theme of molecular and atomic
fusion.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached railings and octagonal piers to
the ends and ramp in front.
An important work by the most celebrated civic architect of
the first half of the C20.
(The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and
Bristol: London: 1958-: 413).

Listing NGR: ST5825372747

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• City Hall, Bristol at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q5123185

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.

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