THE GIN PALACE

GIN PALACE HISTORY

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OLD Market's Palace Hotel, in West Street opposite Midland Road, is not only a city landmark but an architectural gem. It's a pretentious Victorian gin palace whose name still stands proudly above the doorway in gold lettering. The poet Dylan Thomas would have loved it.

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Built in 1869/70 and originally called the Railway Hotel, the building was erected as a speculative venture by Thomas Morgan. Morgan envisaged it as a place where travellers on the nearby Midland railway could find some refreshment and a comfortable bed for the night. The frontage still carries the legend "TM 1869".

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But the planned railway terminus across the road was never built, and the line, which carried passengers into Bristol from Bath and Mangotsfield junction, stopped in St Philip's at a simple station instead.

 

This bit of history helps to explain the pub's truncated look as well as its famous sloping floor, which is at such an angle that it makes you feel inebriated before you've even ordered a drink.

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A Grade II listed building, the Palace has an ornate frontage enlivened by two remarkable Assyrian-style statues and a carved woman's head, an oddity which has been linked to the "veiled lady" in St Nicholas Street. It has a High Victorian interior, complete with brass barley sugar columns and patterned ceramic panels.

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Written by The Bristol Post