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© Miss Janet Gibson

IoE Number: 379164
Location: BISHOPSWORTH MANOR AND ATTACHED WALLS AND PIERS, CHURCH ROAD (east side)
  BRISTOL, BRISTOL, BRISTOL
Photographer: Miss Janet Gibson
Date Photographed: 28 April 2002
Date listed: 08 January 1959
Date of last amendment: 30 December 1994
Grade II*

BRISTOL ST5768 CHURCH ROAD, Bishopsworth 901-1/50/411 (East side) 08/01/59 Bishopsworth Manor and attached walls and piers (Formerly Listed as: CHURCH ROAD, Bishopswith Manor House) (Formerly Listed as: CHURCH ROAD, Bishopswith Walls and piers at the Manor House) II* House. c1720. Squared, coursed Lias rubble front with freestone dressings and rendered sides, ashlar stacks linked to form a square in the manner of Kings Weston, slate dormers and hipped mansard roof, inset to the rear with pantiles. Double-depth plan with central stairhall. Style strongly influenced by Vanbrugh's Baroque King's Weston, King's Weston Lane (qv). 2 storeys and attic; 5-window range. A symmetrical front has a pedimented central bay with pilaster quoins set forward, with a keyed elliptical-arched bolection-moulded doorway, and 8-panel door with interlace fanlight; over the door is a broken segmental pediment enclosing an urn, supported by acanthus leaf folded-scroll brackets; the window above has a keyed elliptical-arched head flanked by fluted pilasters; a first-floor string separates plate-glass sashes in flush bolection-moulded frames, under flat arches with keys, carved with grotesques on the ground floor; dentilled cornice and steep pediment, containing a square plaque with a round sunken panel. 2 wide, hipped dormers with 8/8 sashes, one pane high, with pineapple finials to dormers and pediment. Hipped mansard roof cut by rectangular indent at the back, below the central 4-sided chimney arcade which crowns the house in the manner of Kings Weston; the 2 middle stacks front and back are dummies, all 12 being linked by keyed, elliptical arches on imposts. INTERIOR: good open-well stair with triple column-on-vase balusters, fluted newels, the well lit by a 9/9 sash set in the indented rear bay, and a corniced ceiling with an oval moulding, a semicircular-arched 2-leaf glazed door from the top landing, plain, fielded panelling and shutters to the downstairs and main first-floor rooms, and internal sliding sashes between attic rooms. The cellar has a vaulted basement and freshwater cistern with a hand pump. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached rubble garden walls, coped front wall to street, with 2 pairs of gate piers linked by ramped quadrant walls, the piers with moulded caps, Grecian urns to inner piers, pineapples to outer ones. A range of farm buildings (not included) has been converted and incorporated to the rear. Much of the joinery was renewed in the 1970s restoration under architect Peter Ware. A fine early Georgian house showing an interesting stylistic connection with King's Weston. (Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 115; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 463).