Black Castle, Bristol

Black Castle Public House is a Grade I-listed building and public house on Junction Road in the Brislington suburb of the English city of Bristol. It is also known as Arno's Castle.HistoryIt was built in 1745—55 as a sham castle folly that incorporated office spaces and recreation rooms, but may have originally been a stable block and laundry for the lord of the manor. The building was probably designed by either William Halfpenny or James Bridges, for the prominent local businessman William Reeve of Mount Pleasant (now the Arno’s Court Hotel), from which it is separated by a major road junction.DescriptionThe Castle is built from pre-cast black copper-slag blocks from Reeve's foundry at Crew's Hole. Designed in Gothic Revival style, the building is symmetrical in plan with crenellated circular towers at each corner that link two-storey blocks to form a square courtyard. The front and back blocks have larger crenellated entrance towers with moulded archways through. Above the front arch is a blank panel with ogee head and a two-centre arch on the second storey with perpendicular tracery. The ranges to each side of the entrance have two windows with Y-tracery below a white string course and white carved inset panels. At the top of the ranges are light-coloured battlements with sunken panels.