Description

169405 WELLS ROAD
No. 3
II

Date first listed 04 March 1977

House of c.1830 with C20 addition.
MATERIALS: Rendered walls with limestone dressings to the windows and entrances; ridge stacks and an interlocking tile cross gabled roof with decorative cusped bargeboards.
PLAN: Double-depth plan with a small single-storey late-C20 addition to the north east corner which is not of special interest. It is a two-storey building in a picturesque Gothic Revival style.
EXTERIOR: The east-facing, garden elevation has a two-storey bay to the right-hand gable with shallow surrounds to the windows; and a porch in the re-entrant which has open elliptical arches, a crenellated parapet, and a C20 entrance door. The remaining windows to the east and south elevations have mullions and label moulds; that in the left (south) return has a first-floor two-centred arched window with Y-tracery and cusped heads; plate-glass sashes. At the north east corner of the building is a single-storey, flat-roofed addition. The north elevation is plain, whilst the west return has mostly plate glass sash windows, except to the right hand gabled bay which has an entrance with C20 door and a two-light mullioned window above, both with label moulds.
INTERIOR: Despite subdivision into two flats, the house retains its staircase in its original location, with turned newel and balusters to the upper landing; window shutters to one of the principal ground floor rooms; and architrave. No original fireplaces survive.
HISTORY: No. 3 Wells Road stands in Totterdown, an area which underwent rapid development from the mid-C19 onwards; and as a detached villa in an elevated position it contrasts with the small terraces that typify much of the area. The house has remained in domestic use and, although converted into two flats, is largely externally unaltered apart from a small extension to the garden elevation.

REASONS FOR DECISION: No. 3 Wells Road, Bristol is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architecture: as an ambitious, carefully-designed villa of the 1830s which achieves a picturesque effect through its elevations, ornamentation and massing; the special interest of the building is concentrated in the exterior
* Design: It demonstrates good quality architectural handling as a Gothic Revival building, as well as in its craftsmanship and finishing
* Intactness: Though it has suffered some losses to its interior, it retains some historic fittings inside including the staircase, window shutters and other mid-C19 joinery
* Group value: It adds to the urban texture of this area of the city and has group value with the adjacent listed finger post

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26498258

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

• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)