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© Ms Ruth Povey
IoE Number:
380267
Location:
THE CUSTOM HOUSE, QUEEN SQUARE (north side)
BRISTOL, BRISTOL, BRISTOL
Photographer:
Ms Ruth Povey
Date Photographed:
30 June 2001
Date listed:
04 March 1977
Date of last amendment:
30 December 1994
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 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).