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© Mr Peter Frederick Rushby LMPA
IoE Number:
379881
Location:
MERCHANT VENTURER'S ALMSHOUSES, 1-9 KING STREET (north side)
BRISTOL, BRISTOL, BRISTOL
Photographer:
Mr Peter Frederick Rushby LMPA
Date Photographed:
26 October 1999
Date listed:
08 January 1959
Date of last amendment:
08 January 1959
Grade
II*
The Images of England website consists of images of listed buildings based on the statutory list as it was in 2001 and does not incorporate subsequent amendments to the list. For the statutory list and information on the current listed status of individual buildings please go to The National Heritage List for England.
BRISTOL
ST5872NE KING STREET, Centre
901-1/16/595 (North side)
08/01/59 Merchant Venturers' Almshouses,
Nos.1-9 (Consecutive)
GV II*
Almshouses. Dated 1696. Half destroyed by bombing c1940.
Render over Pennant rubble, C20 brick end-gable, brick lateral
and ridge stacks and pantile hipped roof. Double-depth plan to
2 1/2 sides of a formerly 4-sided courtyard. Early Georgian
style. 2 storeys; 5:8:1-window ranges. The W and half the N
ranges have gone, leaving a C20 brick gable to the end of the
5-window N range, and hipped roof to the originally-open S
range, with a thin drip course and timber modillion eaves
cornice. The long range has a central and 2 corner doorways, a
right-hand doorway to the S range, and third from left on the
N range, with scrolled brackets carved with leaves to open
pediment hoods, half over the corner doorways, and
timber-frames with boarded doors. Mid C20 casement windows
with top-hung casements above transoms, in flush frames.
Oculus over the central doorway. The road front is rubble with
quoins, 4 windows with thin rubble voussoirs to flat heads,
dated panel, and a good carved heraldic panel with merman and
merwoman flanking a shield. Tall rear N lateral stacks, and
ridge stacks separating houses to E and S sides. INTERIOR:
largely refurbished mid C20, dogleg stair in the entrance
hall. HISTORICAL NOTE: founded by the Merchant Venturers'
Society, for seamen, as attested by the board painted with a
poem to their virtues on the N side. Formerly an enclosed
courtyard.
(Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural
History: Bristol: 1979-: 90; The Buildings of England: Pevsner
N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 434).