Description

BRISTOL

ST5873SE LOWER MAUDLIN STREET
901-1/11/136 (South West side)
13/12/73 Eye Hospital, Bristol Royal
Infirmary, and attached basement
area railings
(Formerly Listed as:
LOWER MAUDLIN STREET
Eye Hospital at the Bristol Royal
Infirmary to N of main entrance)

GV II

Pair of attached houses, now one hospital building. Dated 1753
on hopper head, altered to hospital and roof raised 1886. By H
Crisp. Brick with limestone dressings and a slate roof.
Double-depth plan. Early-mid Georgian style. 3 storeys, attic
and basement; 3:6-window range. An unequal pair, articulated
by pilaster strips through moulded strings at each floor to a
moulded parapet coping, the narrower left-hand house with a
cornice.
The right-hand house has a good right-of-centre doorway with
fluted Corinthian pilasters, entablature blocks and segmental
pediment broken forward to the pilasters, to a
segmental-arched architrave wth plate-glass overlight and
double 4-panel door; windows have segmental-arched keyed brick
heads and moulded timber cills, to 6/6-pane sashes in
recessed, exposed frames, horned on the lower floors, and with
thick bars on the second; three C19 dormers with horned
6/1-pane sashes, paired to the middle and right. A cast lead
hopper head to the left inscribed IBS 1753 with a winged
putto.
The left-hand house has a blocked left-hand doorway with
acanthus brackets to a pediment, split key to architrave, and
6/6-pane sash with ashlar below. Rubbed brick keyed flat
arches to 6/6-pane sashes with reveals and concealed frames,
paired in the wider window above the doorway, 3/6-panes in the
second floor. Rendered basement has segmental-arched windows.
The rear has a C19 canted bay and large segmental-arched stair
light with C20 stained glass.
INTERIOR: a good interior linked together with late C20
left-hand end opened to the hospital. Consistent interior
decoration, though lower floor levels to the left. Fully
panelled front ground-floor rooms with egg-and-dart cornices,
6-panel doors and shutters, eared fire surrounds with hob
grates, that to right-hand front room to left-hand house
flanked by fluted Ionic pilasters with a rocaille frieze and
eared overmantel; a fine entrance hall to the right-hand house
has fluted pilasters to panelled elliptical arches across the
middle and framing the left-hand doorway, and a fine open
dogleg stair with 3 column-on-vase balusters per tread, the
middle one twisted, wide curtail, good carved brackets, and a
moulded ramped rail with matching wainscotting; from the
first-floor landing the stair is open well to the front, as
before; the first-floor landing has fluted pilasters each side
to a cornice with late C19 coved plaster corbels set beneath
it. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached cast-iron basement area
railings. Though the strings link the pair together as one
build, the exposed sashes and doorcase of the larger house are
of an earlier date, not unlike Dowry Square of c1720, and the
cornice and recessed window frames of the narrower one appear
of a later date.
(Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural
History: Bristol: 1979-: 197; City of Bristol: City Engineer's
Building Grant Plans: Bristol Record Office: 1851-: FOL 43).

Listing NGR: ST5877973450

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26569400

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

• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)