Bristol Byzantine is a variety ofByzantine Revival architecture that was popular in the city ofBristol from about 1850 to 1880.
Many buildings in the style have been destroyed or demolished, but notable surviving examples include theBristol Beacon,[1] theGranary onWelsh Back, theCarriage Works[2] onStokes Croft and several of the buildings around Victoria Street. Several of the warehouses around the harbour have survived including theArnolfini, which now houses an art gallery.[3]Clarks Wood Company warehouse[4] and theSt Vincent's Works[5] in Silverthorne Lane and theWool Hall[6] in St Thomas Street are other survivors from the 19th century.
Bristol Byzantine has influences fromByzantine andMoorish 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 colouredpolychrome brickwork including red, yellow, black and white brick primarily from theCattybrook 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 theArnolfini a 19th-century Grade II*listed[3]tea warehouse situated on the side of theFloating Harbour inBristol city centre. The architect wasRichard Shackleton Pope, who constructed first the south part of the warehouse (1831) then extended it to the north in 1835–36. It has a rock-faced plinth, three storeys of rectangular windows recessed within tall round arches, and a shallow attic.[8]
The style may have come about as a result of an acquaintance betweenWilliam Venn Gough and Archibald Ponton, who designedthe Granary andJohn Addington Symonds the Bristol-born historian of theItalian Renaissance. The term Bristol Byzantine is thought to have been invented by SirJohn Summerson.[9]
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