Doors Open Day at the University of Bristol Saturday 11 September 2010 A brief guide to the buildings open between 10 am and 4 pm • Wills Memorial Building • Royal Fort House • The School of Chemistry • Clifton Hill House bristol.ac.uk/doorsopenday Welcome Wills Memorial Building Queens Road, BS8 1RJ The University of Bristol is Guided tours Public Engagement • There will be free tours to the pleased to participate once Connecting the University top of the Tower * more in Bristol Doors Open Day and the City • Visit the reception desk on the first 2010. We hope you enjoy floor to reserve a place Public engagement describes the visiting our buildings in this year’s • Tour times: 10.15 am, 10.35 am, many ways in which the University of programme: the Wills Memorial 10.55 am, 11.15 am, 11.35 am, 11.55 am, Bristol’s staff and students interact 12.15 pm, 12.35 pm, 13.15 pm, Building, Royal Fort House, the with the public. Events such as 13.35 pm, 13.55 pm, 14.15 pm, School of Chemistry and Clifton Doors Open Day, public lectures and 14.35 pm, 14.55 pm, 15.15 pm. discussions, cultural celebrations, Hill House. There will also be a • The Entrance Hall, Great Hall and research festivals and lifelong chance to find out about our Reception Room, Council Chamber learning are just some of the ways latest research and talk to and Library will all be open for free in which the public can connect Wills Memorial Building public viewing. researchers at an exhibition of with the University. University an impressive main building earth science research in the on a conspicuous site. The final bill came The Centre for Public Engagement Journeys into research Wills Memorial Building and a to £500,000. Research exhibition from the film screening/photographic supports these interactions, organising Department of Earth Sciences, many events and activities that The building exhibition in Royal Fort House. encourage conversations between 10 am to 4 pm The building was designed in 1912 by the University and the public. This booklet gives you: An exhibition of earth science research George Oatley (1863-1950) who was knighted for his work. It was constructed • Times of free tours taking place at For further information, contact: will take place in the Reception by the builders Henry Willcock & Co of the four venues open today Centre for Public Engagement Room. Come along and talk to our Wolverhampton and was one of the last • Short histories of the buildings University of Bristol researchers, try out the hands-on buildings in this country to be built using • Notes on what to look out for while Senate House activities and learn about our work. wooden scaffolding. The First World War you are visiting. Tyndall Avenue held up the construction of the building Bristol, BS8 1TH A short history and it had to wait until 9 June 1925 when If you require additional support at any of T +44 (0)117 331 8313 George and Henry Wills of the Wills King George V opened it. The building is these events, such as wheelchair access E [email protected] Tobacco Company, who wanted to create now Grade II* Listed. or sign language interpretation, please W bristol.ac.uk/public-engagement a lasting memorial to their father, Henry contact Diane Thorne; tel: +44 (0)117 331 Overton Wills III, paid for the Wills Although to most Bristolians, the Wills 8318, email: [email protected], Download extra copies of Memorial Building. His pledge of £100,000 Memorial Building is the University, today at the earliest opportunity. this booklet from our website: in 1908 made the foundation of the it only houses part of it: the Department of bristol.ac.uk/doorsopenday University possible the following year. Earth Sciences and the School of Law, FREE ADMISSION The brothers also wanted to give the new together with their libraries. * Health and safety Unfortunately, children under 8 are not allowed to go up the Tower. There are more than 200 steps and some enclosed spaces. When a tour coincides with Great George chiming the hour, disposable earplugs will be provided. Wills Memorial Building Queens Road, BS8 1RJ Restoration The Tower WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR Council Chamber – first floor The Tower has recently been subject The Tower, in the Gothic Perpendicular This room was originally used for to a £750,000 restoration, the main style, is one of Bristol’s most prominent Entrance Hall – ground floor meetings of the University’s Council. It is contractors for which were W. R. Bedford, landmarks and is 215 feet (or 65.5 metres) This is one of the most impressive rooms semi-polygonal in shape, with an Stonemasons. This included cleaning the high. in the building and is 75 feet (or 23 impressive glass ceiling above a stone stonework, repainting the shields on the metres) high. Notice the massive double vault. On the longest wall are the shields exterior and installing discreet, energy- Great George staircases to the first floor and Gothic fan of benefactors of the University. efficient floodlights to illuminate it at night. The nine-and-a-half-ton bell at the top of vaulting on the ceiling. In the middle of the the Tower is known as ‘Great George’ vaulting is a decorative oak cover over Library – first floor Flooks Scaffolding Co erected the after the architect, Sir George Oatley, King the aperture where the bell, ‘Great George’, A bust of the architect of the building, scaffolding for this project. It consisted George V and George Wills. Great George was hoisted into the belfry. Sir George Oatley, can be found near the of a network of 9,000 steel tubes, which is the sixth heaviest bell in Britain and the entrance to the library. The oldest part of weighed a total of 300 tons and which, if third largest bell that can be swung by The original Founder’s Window lost its glass the library is 100 feet (or 30.5 metres) long laid end to end, would run for 56 kilometres, rope and wheel in the country. The bell’s in the Second World War and the existing and has a beautiful 16th-century style or all the way to Taunton. There were also note is E-flat and it was the deepest- window is a new design showing the shields plaster ceiling. 30 tons of clips and fittings, 40 tons of toned in the UK when it was made. It is of all the early supporters of the University. beams to create bridges and 90 tons of now usually struck externally between Centenary garden scaffold boards equivalent to 50 lorry- 7 am and 11 pm. Reception Room – first floor Outside the building is the Centenary loads of materials, all handled and The Reception Room is 64 feet (or 19.5 garden, a public space designed by erected by a team of just seven men. metres) long, with a Minstrels’ Gallery at Anne de Verteuil in celebration of the one end and an oriel window at the other. University’s centenary in 2009. It has a beautiful plasterwork ceiling and oak panelling on the walls. On each oak pilaster are the arms of University tributary Journeys into Research ALISON NEEDLER RICHARD EDWARDS counties and cities. The portraits are of Research exhibition, 10 am to 4 pm distinguished officers of the University, Reception Room, Wills Memorial including George and Henry Wills and Building Sir Winston Churchill, Chancellor of the University from 1929 to 1965. Explore the latest research from the Department of Earth Sciences. Great Hall – first floor The exhibition presents work ranging The magnificent 100-foot (or 30.5 metres) from understanding volcanoes and long Great Hall can seat 1,000 people for continent formation to piecing graduation ceremonies (February and July) together the lives of dinosaurs. and other important occasions. There is Meet the researchers who work in a beautiful hammer-beam roof in English this impressive building and find oak and linen-fold panelling on the walls, out about the discoveries made all of which had to be restored after the within these walls. Recent restoration of the Tower Entrance Hall building was bombed in 1940. Royal Fort House off Tyndall Avenue, BS8 1UJ A short history The building WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR Thomas Tyndall, who built Royal Fort James Bridges began work on Royal Fort House on the site of the old Royalist Fort, House by preparing a wooden model that Entrance Hall leased the land from Bristol Corporation in can still be seen in the House today. In the • On the walls, four decorative brackets 1737, and for some years continued to design and building of the House, Bridges whose original purpose was to carry buy up the leases of more of the collaborated with Thomas Paty* who did lamps (note their representation of the surrounding land. The family’s wealth had both the stone carving and rococo four seasons) been acquired over many years through woodcarving, and with Thomas Stocking** • The 18th-century brass floor heating trade with Africa and the West Indies. The who did the decorative rococo plaster inlets can still be seen. architect, James Bridges, who had come work. The mason who was responsible for from the American Colonies and set up the stonework is thought to be Robert The Staircase Hall his premises on St Michael’s Hill, was Gray who had done other work for Bridges. • Thomas Stocking’s rococo stucco commissioned by Thomas Tyndall to Of Bridges’ elevations for Royal Fort work on the walls prepare designs for a new house at Royal House, Ison*** writes: “The elevations are • The Edwardian chandelier, hanging Fort.