St Brandon's School For Girls

Details

CLEVEDON VICTORIA ROAD ST 4071 1/125 St Brandon's School for Girls

GV II*

House, now school. 1850, by J Foster and J Wood for Conrad Finzel; later additions to rear. Coursed rubble with ashlar dressings; fishscale patterns to slate roofs; stone stacks. Central-stairhall plan to main block, with rear service wings and library. Jacobethan style. 2 storeys and attic; symmetrical 7-bay range. Projecting outer bays with finials to shaped gables, both linked by single-storey loggia with open spandrels to arcade, triglyph frieze and openwork parapet with cresting over central entrance with flanking columns and panelled round-headed doors. Central and outer bays framed by banded pilasters and string courses; similar openwork parapet between outer bays with scrolled pediment to centre. Stone-mullioned and transomed windows, of 2 lights to central bays and of 3-lights to outer bays which have scrolled pediments and cartouches and curved ground-floor bow windows with similar parapets. Similar 3-bay right-hand return with large stair window of 3 two-light geometrical Gothic-style windows with diamond-leaded lights above broken-pedimented door architrave with tapered pilasters and shell tympanum; 5-bay arcade to conservatory further to rear. Left-hand return has arcaded porch set in angle of projecting bay with shaped gable which adjoins tower to rear with cupola and oculi to shaped dormers to rear. Rear elevations in similar but plainer style. Interior: panelled doors and shutters, those to ground-floor main rooms more richly treated with decorative brass fittings. Variety of classical and Jacobethan-style fireplaces. Enriched and moulded cornices to most rooms. Panelled vestibule with corbels to segmental-arched ceilings; grand doorway to hall has trefoiled arch. framing decorative iron tympanum over double doors flanked by tapered pilasters to console brackets. Panelled hall has cantilevered-out balcony to landing with Jacobean strapwork balustrade, carved pendentives and Ionic newels. Dog-leg stair with Jacobean strapwork balustrade, similar newels and pendentives and figures of Gothic knights holding lamps; panelled ceiling, glazed to centre, has enriched cornices, pendants and strapwork etc; trefoil- arched arcades each end of hall with tapered Ionic pilasters and console brackets; Jacobethan-style fireplace with caryatids and fine decorative tiles. Large doorway to library: fittings removed from Leigh Court (qv), a Greek-Revival mansion of 1814 by Thomas Hopper; 2 fine marble fireplaces with carvings of the serpent in the Garden of Eden; bookcases all framed by pilasters and frieze with stylised Ionic capitals to naturalistic brass plates; two sets of panelled double doors each end. To right is room with dentilled cornices, strapwork and putti etc to, lincrusta frieze and Elizabethan-style marble fireplace with caryatids; this is set in ingle with flanking benches set against panelled screen with carved Ionic pilasters and turned newel to projecting entablature with lions' masks to strapwork frieze; shell niche to corner cupboard. This house was formerly known as Clevedon Hall. Finzel made his fortune by inventing a vacuum device to evaporate moisture from sugar. It was later occupied by Charles Hill, the Bristol shipbuilder, and by St Brandon's School for Girls between 1945 and 1991.

Listing NGR: ST4005171122

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

33143

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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