Listing Text

BRISTOL

ST5873SE TAYLOR'S COURT, Centre
901-1/11/679 (North side)
08/01/59 Merchant Tailors' Hall

GV II*

Guild meeting hall, now offices. 1740-1, converted c1950.
Rendered limestone ashlar, roof not visible. Single-depth
Great Hall and right-hand stair block. Early Georgian style.
3 storey; 7-window range. A 2-window right-hand service block
set forward, Great Hall to the left with raised basement to a
plat band, and a moulded coping ramped up to the left; the
right-hand entrance has a fine late C17 shell hood with
painted Arms of the guild with flanking winged cupids and a
head of John the Baptist, on acanthus brackets, pulvinated
frieze and architrave to double 6-panel doors. Plain surrounds
to square basement windows, with entrances at each end,
separated by angled coach bollards; windows have architraves
and pulvinated friezes, cornices to the right-hand section
with 9/9-pane sashes and a small 6-pane window over the door,
and alternate segmental and triangular pediments to tall
20/20-pane sashes to 2-storey windows on the Great Hall. Thick
glazing bars. In the re-entrant is a conical lead hopper and
downpipe.
INTERIOR: entrance hall with panelled wainscot to a
ground-floor room with full panelling to 2 walls, and a dogleg
stair with uncut string and column balusters and moulded rail;
the former hall has an inserted C20 floor, with a rear
bolection-moulded fire surround with Bristol Delft tiled back
and panelled overmantel to a cornice; bolection-moulded
architraves. It formerly had double doors from the N end
beneath a musicians' gallery, high panelled dado and deep
coved ceiling. Now connected internally with No.41 Broad
Street (qv). Ison suggests the hood may be older and may have
come from the C17 hall which it replaced. The court in front
is flagged with Pennant cobbles, and forms an important part
of the historic setting.
(Ison W: The Georgian Buildings of Bristol: Bath: 1952-: 95).

Listing NGR: ST5881873143