| Summary : Overlooking the Clifton Suspension Bridge, the Bristol Camera Obscura is located in a building that was originally a windmill known as "The Snuff Mill". In 1777 the mill machinery was damaged by fire following the onset of a gale which turned the sales too quickly. William West leased the mill for conversion into an observatory in 1828. In 1835 he was granted an extra piece of land adjacent to the tower on which he built a new astronomical observatory with a revolving dome and telescope "to allow unrestricted observation of the heaven". Next to this was a large room with various astronomical maps, globes and instruments, intended for occasional use as a lecture room. The tower was also altered in 1835, by the rebuilding of the wooden balcony and the fitting of the camera obscura. The building is constructed from carboniferous limestone rubble with limestone dressings, a lead roof to tower and a roofless side block. It is of a single-depth plan consisting of a three-stage round tower with a single-storey, four-window side block. The battered tower has a first-floor casement window, and tall, moulded brackets to a rendered top storey containing the camera obscura with crenellations and casements in the embrasures. |