Clayton Hotel Bristol City

Dalata's Clayton Hotels brand made its Bristol debut behind the ornate Art Nouveau facade of a former printing works on Broad Street, delivering 255 upscale, business-oriented rooms in a £50 million adaptive-reuse project. It's the largest and most corporate of Bristol's recent hotel arrivals.

The place

Clayton Hotel Bristol City sits on Broad Street in the city centre, occupying the former Edward Everard's Printing Works — a building whose ornate Art Nouveau facade, dating to the 1900s, was retained and restored as the centrepiece of the redevelopment.

The concept

This was Irish operator Dalata Hotel Group's first hotel in Bristol and its 17th in the UK, delivered as a £50 million redevelopment of a historic printing works that had never previously operated as a hotel. Rather than demolishing the building, the developers — Artisan Real Estate Investors and Abrdn, built by McAleer & Rushe — retrofitted it, a decision credited with saving around 2,084 tonnes of CO2 versus a full rebuild. The facade's original decorative panels, which honour printing pioneers Johannes Gutenberg and William Morris, were kept in place and now front a 255-room, 4-star hotel aimed primarily at business and conference travellers. At 255 rooms it is by far the largest hotel in this guide's Bristol selection — closer in scale and positioning to an international upscale business-hotel brand than to the city's independent boutique properties, with air-conditioned rooms and a large conference and events offering.

Dining & wellness

The hotel has an on-site bar, restaurant, gym and extensive conference and meeting facilities geared towards corporate groups and events.