BRISTOL BYZANTINE

'Bristol Byzantine' is a variety of Neo-Byzantine architecture that was popular in the city of Bristol from about 1850 to 1880.

Many buildings in the style have been destroyed or demolished, but notable surviving examples include the Colston Hall,[1] the Granary on Welsh Back, the Gloucester Road Carriage Works,[2] and several of the buildings around Victoria Street. Several of the wharehouses around the harbour have survived including the Arnolfini which now houses an art gallery.[3] Clarks Wood Company warehouse[4] and the St Vincent's Works[5] in Silverthorne Lane and the Wool Hall[6] in St Thomas Street are other survivors from the 19th century.

Contents
Style
Architects
Examples of buildings in the Byzantine architecture style
Bristol Byzantine in the arts
References
Gallery
See also

Style


Bristol Byzantine has influences from Byzantine and Moorish architecture applied mainly to industrial buildings such as warehouses and factories.
The style is characterised by a robust and simple outline, materials with character and colour including red, yellow black and white brick primarily from the Cattybrook Brickpit.
Several buildings included archways and upper floors unified through either horizontal or vertical grouping of window openings.[7]
The first building with some of the characteristics generally thought of a Bristol Byzantine is Bush House, which is now known as the Arnolfini a 19th century Grade II
listed[3] tea warehouse situated on the side of the Floating Harbour in Bristol city centre. The architect was Richard Shackleton Pope, who constructed first the south part of the warehouse (1831) then extended it to the north in 1835-6. It has a rock-faced plinth, three storeys of rectangular windows recessed within tall round arches, and a shallow attic.[9]
The style may have come about as a result of the an acquaintance between William Venn Gough and Archibald Ponton, who designed the Granary and John Addington Symonds the Bristol-born historian of the Italian renaissance. The term Bristol Byzantine is thought to have been invented by Sir John Summerson.[10]

Architects



R Milverton Drake

★ ? Foster

William Bruce Gingell

Edward William Godwin

William Venn Gough

John Henry Hirst

Thomas Royse Lysaght

Archibald Ponton

Richard Shackleton Pope

★ ? Wood

Examples of buildings in the Byzantine architecture style



Carriage Works 1862

Clarks Wood Company warehouse 1863

Colston Hall 1860s

Former Gardiners offices 1865-7

Gardiners warehouse 1865

Granary, Bristol 1869

35 King Street c1870

Robinson's Warehouse 1874

St Vincent's Works

Warehouse premises of Hardware (Bristol) Limited 1882

Wool Hall, Bristol 1830

Bristol Byzantine in the arts


Bristol Byzantine is also the name of a track by The Blue Aeroplanes on their 2006 album 'Altitude'.

References



1. The Colston Hall
2. No.104 The Carriage Works
3. Bush House
4. Clarks Wood Company warehouse
5. St Vincent's Works and attached front area railings
6. No.12 The Wool Hall, including the Fleece and Firkin Public House
7. Bristol Byzantine
8. Bush House
9. Bush House
10. Portrait of Bristol, , Keith, Brace, Robert Hale, 1996,


Gallery



See also



Buildings and architecture of Bristol

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