Guildhall

Venue Type & Location

Guildhall

Site Name: Guildhall
Location: Bristol
County: Bristol (city-county) in Gloucestershire
Location Type: Town - in town at determined location

Performance Spaces

Overview

The guildhall was located on the W side of Broad Street near St John's Gate.

Performance History

Performance payment records survive in the Bristol Mayors' Audits from 1531.

The guildhall was the probable venue for most of the performances before the mayor and council before 1600 and possibly others in the early 17th c.

Current Status

Demolished.

History of the Venue

1348 Earliest definite record of the existence of a guildhall (Leech, Topography 33).

15th c. Guildhall rebuilt in Perpendicular style.

1704 Many of the Guildhall's functions transferred to the new Council House.

ca. 1813 Guildhall facade refronted. A large perpendicular window replaced the smaller original windows.

1843--6 Original guildhall demolished and replaced by a more lavish Victorian Gothic building, smaller by a third than the older hall (Gomme et al, Bristol 300).

Record Source

REED Bristol 40--241

Bibliographic Sources

  • Foyle, Andrew. Bristol. Pevsner Architectural Guides. New Haven & London: Yale UP, 2004.
  • Gomme, Andor, Michael Jenner and Bryan Little. Bristol: An Architectural History. London: Lund Humphries, 1979.
  • Leech, Roger H. The Topography of Medieval and Modern Bristol. Part I: Property Holdings in the Early Walled Town and Marsh Suburb North of the Avon. Bristol Record Society 48. Bristol: Bristol Record Society, 1997.
  • Pevsner, Nikolaus. North Somerset and Bristol. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth, Midd: Penguin Books, 1973.
  • Tittler, Robert. Architecture and Power: The Town Hall and the English Urban Community c. 1500–1640. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1991.