University building. 1914-25. By Sir George Oatley. Extended c1950 by Ralph Bretnall. Limestone ashlar with ashlar cross axial stacks and slate roofs. Tower, 3 sided quadrangle to the right, left-hand block, and rear hall; double-depth plan. Perpendicular Gothic Revival style.
Plinth, windows with Perpendicular panel tracery, cornices with grotesques and stepped crenellated parapets. Very large 2-stage square tower and octagonal belfry has massive clasping buttresses with ashlar corners; central doorway has a splayed Tudor arch with octagonal buttresses, a frieze above with 9 carved figures in niches, and half-glazed traceried 2-leaf doors. Large 2-centred arched window above has 3 transoms and 2 king mullions, to blind traceried panels with pairs of painted shields.
Second stage has a Tudor arch between the buttresses beneath a panelled wall, over 3 ogee-headed windows separated by pinnacle buttresses. Octagonal tops to the buttresses with corner pinnacles and swept caps.
Belfry has tripartite windows to each side, flanking ones blind, and panel tracery above. To the left is a single-storey screen with parapet, 4 bays with mullion windows, and a canted left-of-centre bay with a Tudor-arched door; behind is a 2 storey symmetrical block with a tall canted bay, and Tudor-arched window above set back between wide ashlar buttresses.
The quadrangle has a rear 3 storey, 7-bay range, with buttresses between full-height Tudor-arched 4-light windows, and a central 3-window canted bay with 3-light windows, all with Tudor-arched heads, and ogee-headed upper ones.
To the right is a squat square 3-bay tower with octagonal clasping turrets, and a forward projecting 5-bay wing with similar windows to the rear of the quad, a gabled end elevation with large clasping octagonal turrets and a central full-height canted bay. To the right set back is a mid C20 extension in a similar style.
The Great Hall to the rear has 6 bays separated by flying buttresses, and aisles with shallow segmental-arched 5-light mullion windows between the buttresses to a parapet. To rear of E courtyard projects the Council Room, polygonal with 9 bays divided by buttresses, 3-light windows with panel tracery, the inner windows blind.
INTERIOR: a fine and consistent late Gothic style interior with good blind-tracery stone panelling, joinery and plasterwork. A very large 3-bay entrance hall has panelled tracery walls and fan vaulting; in the belfry is Britain's 4th largest bell 'Great George'.
A long stair to each side of the hall rises to three 2-centre arches below an enriched wall divided into 3 by buttresses, and a 7-bay cross passage with fan vaulting, and Tudor-arched doors to the Great Hall. This has 6 bays with large trilobate stone arches at each end, to a 5-bay N apse containing the organ, and a S balcony on timber fan vaults. Linenfold panelling all round. Hammer beam roof on large corbels, tracery panels over the bracing and large openwork pendents.
In the left-hand block is the Reception Room, 3 fully-panelled bays with elliptical arches at each end, 2 Tudor-arched fireplaces, and panelled plaster ceiling with pendents. Council Room has attached piers to a vaulted roof with intersecting ribs, forming a 14-sided ceiling light with tracery glazing bars. The inner wall has a wide segmental arch over 5 blind windows with tracery panels and shields. Linenfold panelling.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached dwarf walls extend approx 20m W and 40m E of the tower, with 4 tall cast-iron lamps.
HISTORICAL NOTE: The university started as the College of Science and Literature in 1876 and received its charter in 1909.
The Wills Memorial Building (also known as the Wills Memorial Tower or simply the Wills Tower) is a Neo Gothic building designed by Sir George Oatley and built as a memorial to Henry Overton Wills III by his sons George and Henry Wills. Begun in 1915 and not opened until 1925, it is considered one of the last great Gothic buildings to be built in England.
Situated near the top of Park Street on Queens Road in Bristol, United Kingdom, it is a landmark building of the University of Bristol that currently houses the School of Law and the Department of Earth Sciences, as well as the Law and Earth Sciences libraries. It is the third highest structure in Bristol, standing at 215 ft (65.5 m).
Many regard the building as synonymous with the University of Bristol. It is the centrepiece building of the university precinct and is used by the University of Bristol for degree ceremonies and examinations, which take place in the Great Hall.
Architecture commentator Nikolaus Pevsner described it as:
"a tour de force in Gothic Revival, so convinced, so vast, and so competent that one cannot help feeling respect for it."
It has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II* listed building and serves as a regional European Documentation Centre.