Description

BRISTOL

ST315871 BEDMINSTER PARADE, Bedminster
901-1/45/368 (West side)
Bedminster Library

GV II

Library. 1914. By Sir Frank Wills. Brick with limestone
dressings and a tiled hipped roof.
Open plan with a rear left-hand stair tower. Edwardian Baroque
style. 2 storeys; 7-window range.
A symmetrical front has heavy clasping pilasters to an
entablature with modillion cornice, parapet with a plinth and
raised centre with a wreath, articulated by ground-floor brick
buttresses beneath first-floor Ionic pilasters. A large
doorway has broad panels to a pulvinated frieze and wide, open
pediment, pilaster jambs to a low doorway with a scrolled key
and double 6-panel doors, an oculus above with an octagonal
lantern and a split key, with a cartouche above held by
flanking putti. Semicircular-arched ground-floor windows have
keys and imposts to 12/12-pane horned sashes; first-floor
windows set beneath the entablature have distyle-in-antis
Doric columns between the pilasters, with glazing bars. The
3-window left-hand gable has ashlar bands, ground-floor
windows as the front with doorways beneath lunettes,
first-floor windows as the front, flanking a tall central
semicircular-arched window with pilaster jambs and a
segmental-arched hood.
The 3-stage stair tower has ground-floor windows as the gable,
with a double door to the front beneath a deep stone canopy,
architraves to first-floor windows, with a triple window in
the left return with a segmental pediment to the centre, and
plain sill and head bands; heavy scrolled consoles to the
plain ashlar eaves, with narrow windows between, and a
pyramidal roof.
INTERIOR: open ground floor with cornice, quadripartite vaults
to left side on plain columns; the tower has an open-well
stair with a central lift shaft.
HISTORICAL NOTE: the »10,000 cost was met by George Wills.
(Loxton S: Loxton's Bristol: Bristol: 1992-: 85).

Listing NGR: ST5882871842

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Bedminster Library official website
• Wikidata Q26499549

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

• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record