Description

GLOUCESTER

SO8218SE SPA ROAD
844-1/11/306 (North side)
25/01/52 Nos.13 AND 15
Ribston Hall and attached frontage
railings
(Formerly Listed as:
SPA ROAD
(North side)
Ribston Hall (College of Art))

GV II

Hotel. 1829, for John Phillpotts, from 1860 a college for
young ladies called Ribston Hall; altered for use as art
school annexe 1970. Stuccoed brick, probably slate roof. A
large rectangular block with projection to rear right; the
facade set back behind a paved railed area, with the former
formal garden with railing to the right.
EXTERIOR: three storeys; the front of five symmetrical bays
and a slightly recessed, narrower sixth bay at the left hand
end (1 + 5); offset plinth, crowning entablature from which
the cornice has been removed and shallow coped parapet.
On the ground floor the entrance doorway in the central bay of
the symmetrical five bays, formerly within a porte cochere now
demolished but indicated by flanking pilasters; the doorway in
a wide segmental-arched opening with a moulded, eared and
shouldered architrave frame and with a raised keystone in the
arch carved with a mask; moulded door frame and a decorative
fanlight with radiating bars; fielded six-panel double doors;
other ground floor bays treated as an arcade in which the
faces of the broad piers are each decorated with a Greek
Revival pattern channelled into the stucco and are capped by
moulded imposts, the face of each impost decorated with a
panel of incised Greek key pattern; the arches have plain,
raised architraves each enclosing a recessed tympanum
decorated with a simple, repeating, incised pattern.
In each opening a sash with glazing bars (4x4 panes) and
between the piers a stone sill projecting at each end on
moulded brackets; on the first-floor sashes with glazing bars
(3x5 panes),the openings framed by shouldered architraves,
moulded cornices on end-brackets,and sills with projecting
ends supported on moulded end-brackets; on the second floor
shorter sashes with glazing bars (4x4 panes) in openings with
moulded eared architraves and projecting stone sills on
moulded end-brackets.
The east return elevation (garden front): on the ground floor

four arcade bays similar to the entrance front but with
narrower openings and lower sills to the sashes (5x3 panes);
on the first floor three sashes with glazing bars (3x4 panes)
in openings with similar details but smaller than those on the
entrance front, and with a pediment above the central window;
on the second floor three sashes with glazing bars (3x4 panes)
in openings similar details to the entrance front.
INTERIOR: not inspected.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: along the street frontage a wrought-iron
railing with turned finials on the standards.
HISTORY: hotel was originally called The Spa Hotel and was
built to accommodate visitors to Gloucester Spa.
Elizabeth Barratt Browning was a guest in the former Spa Hotel
for a year during convalescence.

Listing NGR: SO8288818029

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26538133

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

• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Harrow on the Hill: A photographic portrayal of listed buildings and structures (Historic Buildings Picture Guides)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5