Description

BRISTOL

ST5872NW COLLEGE GREEN
901-1/15/70 (South side)
01/11/66 Central Library and attached walls
and railings
(Formerly Listed as:
COLLEGE GREEN
(South side)
The Central Library)

GV I

Library. 1906. By Charles Holden. Limestone ashlar with
Pennant ashlar panels, lateral stacks and green slate
cross-gabled roof. Open plan. Free Early Tudor style with
Modern Movement influences.
2 storeys, attic and 2 basements; 14-window range. A
symmetrical front has shallow projecting wings with paired
buttresses to the lower half, a parapet and gables set back
with clasping buttresses, linked by a parapet in front of the
recessed attic storey. Semicircular-arched doorway in the
left-hand wing has splayed sides and a moulded arch, with a
carved architrave to a flat-headed doorway with double
half-glazed doors, and a segmental-arched plate-glass
overlight. A tall shallow mullion and transom oriel above has
a carved base and a parapet; the right-hand wing has a mullion
and transom window below the oriel. Outer ground-floor windows
to the wings are set in semicircular recesses; all
ground-floor windows have 2-lights with moulded surrounds.
The central section has 3 full-height segmental-arched
recesses, with paired ground-floor windows and first-floor
canted oriels with chequerboard panels to the sides, and a
coved cornice; above are carved figures of Bede, Alfred the
Great and Chaucer in the tympanum. Shallow buttresses to the
second floor flank the windows. The gables have round mullion
and transom windows, a gabled moulded cornice with Tudor roses
and a shield.
The left return and rear elevations are a complex and
skilfully articulated pattern of recessed planes and blind
arches, and include the 2-storey bowed stair block with
buttresses between rising mullion windows.
INTERIOR: a vaulted entrance hall with marble-clad piers to
mosaic vaults; a large ashlar-clad winder stair, to the
upstairs hall, 1:3:1 bays with a semicircular-arched vault,
Ionic pilasters to an entablature and dentil cornice, Tuscan
columns between to a balcony and columns along the central bay
to the entablature; doorways to winder balcony stairs with
segmental pediments and first-floor oculi with festoon
decoration. A very finely carved overmantel attributed to
Grinling Gibbons was moved from the old King Street Library to
the Reference Library.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached front area walls, railings and
lamps.
'...one of the great masterpieces of the early Modern
Movement' (Gomme). The N front acknowledges the Great
Gatehouse to the left (qv), while the fine rear elevations can
be compared with contemporary work in Glasgow by Mackintosh. A
supreme example of Edwardian Free Style, which in its bold
rationalist design was to have great influence in shaping the
work of other architects in the vanguard of architectural
development.

Listing NGR: ST5825272674

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Bristol Central Library at Wikipedia
• Bristol Central Library official website
• Wikidata Q4968840

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

• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)