News / Architecture
New ‘landmark building’ could be built next to historic shot tower
The legacy of a plumber who made and lost a fortune remains on Cheese Lane overlooking the Floating Harbour close to St Philip’s Bridge.
In 1782, William Watts invented a method for making perfectly spherical lead shot by pouring molten lead from a tower he built on top of his house opposite St Mary Redcliffe Church.
He was so successful that he was invited to meet King George III, but later sold his business and invested the money in the building of Windsor Terrace overlooking the Avon Gorge, but he went bankrupt before even the foundations were complete.
is needed now More than ever
Windsor Terrace in Clifton was long known as Watts’ Folly after its bankrupt speculative developer who had made his fortune inventing a method to make lead shot – photo: Martin Booth
Watts’ tower in Redcliffe made lead shot until 1968 until it was pulled down for road widening (the Colosseum pub now sits nearby) and a new tower built on Cheese Lane by the Sheldon Bush & Patent Shot Company.
Currently covered in scaffolding, the distinctive concrete tower will be part of a new “landmark building” on the site of what is currently Heart FM and the BIMM Bristol music college.
The shot tower is next to St Philip’s Bridge, named after nearby St Philip and St Jacob Church – photo: Martin Booth
The proposals for One Passage Street are for “a mixed-use scheme with offices and a ground floor eatery, which would open onto the terrace above Floating Harbour to make full use of the waterside location. We propose demolishing the existing 33,000sq ft building and replacing it with a new circa 110,000 sq. ft. landmark building, designed to create a safe and attractive local environment.”
AWW Architects say that “the massing of the proposed building has been shaped using tiers that step back as they rise, so key views of the Shot Tower are not obscured”.
The current building on Passage Street is four storeys high. “But the local height and density context continues to change rapidly” say developers, with Castle Park View tower nearby at 26 storeys high for example.
Plans for the new building are for it to be four storeys closest to the edge of the docks, then increase the height in tiers to a maximum of 11 storeys.
The size of the proposed One Passage Street building has been influenced by newly built surrounding buildings – image: AWW Architects
Main image: AWW Architects
Read more: Men in hi-vis gather on top of Bristol’s tallest residential tower
Listen to the latest Bristol24/7 Behind the Headlines podcast:
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
