Details
This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 05/04/2019
656-1/42/1294
PRIOR PARK ROAD (West side),
Nos. 6-24 (even) Ralph Allen Cottages and No. 1 Priory Cottages
(Formerly listed as Nos.6-26 (Even) Ralph Allen Cottages, and Priory Cottage (No.26), previously listed as: PRIOR PARK ROAD Nos.6-26 (Even))
30/01/73
GV
II*
Eleven terrace houses, including Priory Cottage. 1728-1740, restored 1983. For Ralph Allen, by John Wood the Elder.
MATERIALS: limestone ashlar, pantile roofs.
PLAN: single depth plan, cottages in pairs, with shared party-wall stacks and broad plain area of walling between grouped windows. Lobby entries; fireplaces within rear walls; winder stairs placed within wide party walls.
EXTERIOR: overall composition comprises row of three storeys, each two windows, all glazing bar sashes in slight recessed surrounds, but splayed to first and second floors in No.18, six/twelve and twelve-pane. Centred to each pair six-panel doors, top panels generally glazed, under heavy slab hood on three consoles, central one wider, and hood continued as platband on bed mould. Each pair has flat dividing pilaster from first floor level upwards, and two stage ashlar stack on coped party division, with cross-gabled saddles to intermediate party divisions, and continuous moulded stone eaves cornice. Doorway to former No.24 blocked, and No.24 Priory Cottage has further unit, set gable to street. Ashlar, with slate to front roof slope, to coped gables, in three storeys, gable end has twelve-pane sashes at attic and first floors, with nine-pane and six-panel door at ground floor.
Main front, facing south, in three bays, with twelve-pane sashes and balconettes at first floor above sixteen-pane, and central four-panel door with transom light. Four narrow panelled pilasters, set in from corners, and moulded eaves cornice with blocking course, and ball finials above pilasters. Stack to left, and to rear eaves, rear has two lights, and door at lower ground level. Rear of main range in coursed rubble, and each house has two small rooflights, above stepped plain sashes, with centred small lights at two levels, above glazed doors.
INTERIORS: not inspected.
HISTORY: these, together with the quarrymen's houses (qv 83-101 Church Road, Combe Down) are very early examples of dedicated industrial housing. They are of considerable interest also as part of Ralph Allen's extensive quarrying business, and were built -like Prior Park- to demonstrate the capabilities of Bath stone. Wood's design applied the principles of Palladian order to the hitherto-unexplored realm of workers' housing, and they marked the western approaches to Allen's domain. The houses are close to the wharf from which Allen shipped his stone, brought down from the quarries by rail on the line of the current Ralph Allen Drive. They thus formed part of an exceptional industrial landscape, and are of very considerable significance as part of Ralph Allen's working landscape, as well as being early industrial houses of unusual architectural interest.
The houses were threatened by a road-widening scheme in the 1970s (the County of Avon applied to demolish the buildings in 1979) but subsequently reprieved; extensive refurbishment carried out by David Brain and Stollar, architects and Mountford Construction Co Ltd. A plaque on No.6 records: `Ralph Allen's Cottages. Built by Ralph Allen to house his stonemasons, who worked nearby. Erected c1740. Restored 1983'. A second bronze plaque records the award of a Bath Conservation Area Committee Environmental Award 1985. No. 4 has been completely rebuilt in facsimile.
SOURCES: See RCHME Report and Survey in NMR, ref. 33209; Mowl T and Earnshaw B: John Wood Architect of Obsession (1988), 43-44.
Listing NGR: ST7551464172
