Queens Road
Distance: 2.13 km.
At the top of Queen’s Road stands the Victoria Rooms designed as assembly rooms by Charles Dyer. The foundation stone was laid on 24 May 1838, Queen Victoria’s 19th birthday, in whose honour the building was named. The building was constructed between 1838 and 1842 in the Greek revival style. There is an eight-column Corinthian portico at the entrance, with a classical relief sculpture designed by Musgrave Watson above it. The construction is of dressed stonework, with a slate roof. A bronze statue of Edward VII was erected in 1912 at the front of the Victoria Rooms, together with a curved pool and several fountains with sculptures in the Art Nouveau style.
The building contains a 665-seat auditorium, a lecture theatre, recital rooms, rehearsal rooms and a recording studio. Its doors first opened to the public in May 1842, and for many years served as the most important and lively cultural centre in the West of England, hosting Charles Dickens who gave readings here from 1866-1869. Another visitor was Oscar Wilde who lectured on Aesthetics. And a Swedish opera singer, Johanna Maria ‘Jenny’ Lind, often called the ‘Swedish Nightingale’.
To the left is the ‘Studio’ where the Bristol inventor of cinematography, William Friese-Greene, opened his studio in 1880. Friese Green had opened a studio in Bath the previous year and he had another in Plymouth.
