Details
ARGYLE STREET
(South side)
Nos.8-17 (Consec)
12/06/50
GV II*
Shops with accommodation over, now in mixed use including public houses. c1789 with c1828 and late C19 and C20 alterations. By Thomas Baldwin.
MATERIALS: Bath limestone ashlar, with Welsh slate roofs, some pantiles on rear slopes.
PLAN: Double depth.
EXTERIOR: Balanced terrace stretching between Pulteney Bridge and Laura Place. three storeys, attics and basement storey. Thirty bays to whole, each house has three, three:nine:six:nine:three. Either end of block projects and has entablature and crowning pediment, and central semicircular headed window with decorated entablature on the first floor, that to No. 8 is blind. Central portion projects slightly and has Pompeian frieze at second floor level. Windows in plain reveals, all six/six sashes except Nos.13-15, and the first floor of No.11, which are late C19 plain sashes. Continuous sill on second floor. The buildings have a remarkable range of shopfronts. No. 8 is especially fine with four fluted Ionic columns, panelled doors flank four/three windows, entablature, dentil cornice, with the Royal Arms of Queen Charlotte, executed in Coade Stone, over. This shop front must date from fairly soon after the house was built, and is said to be c1828: one of the outstanding late Georgian shopfronts anywhere in the country. No. 9 (Boater public house) has an early C19 bowed front, central door, now window, flanked by eight pane windows, each section has fanlight over. Original doorway to right, six panel with radiating fanlight over. Nos.10 and 11 have projecting C20 `character' shopfronts with house doors to right (No.11 may be earlier). No.12 has a good late C19 projecting double fronted shop, nine pane windows, fascia on double consoles, house doorway to right. No.13 has a C20 `modern' double fronted shop. Nos.14 and 15 have late C19 surrounds with late C20 `character' windows, with original house doors to right, plain fans. No.16 has late C18 bowed front matching No. 8, but central entrance retained with pediment over, plate glass windows, original house door to right, six panels, radiating fanlight. This was the former premises of the Argyle Dairy Co., est. 1790. No.17 has long and short rusticated quoins to the ground floor, central doorway with arched head, restored six/six sash to right, plate glass window inserted to left. Mansard roofs with paired flat topped dormer to each house, most with six/six sashes, ashlar stacks, with pots except to No.14. No. 8 has a return elevation of one bay with flanking giant Corinthian pilasters fronting onto Laura Place (qv for full description). The rear elevations are rubble, show the basement storeys and have many later additions of varying sizes to the ground and first floors. This elevation is visually very important as it can be readily viewed from across the river on Grand Parade. Tripartite windows with stepped heads to first floor and with plain heads to second floor. The rear elevation of No.17 is particularly important and has been restored to something like its original appearance as shown in Thomas Hearne's watercolour 'Bath from Spring Gardens' of 1790. Semicircular vault for warehouse at river level, triple windows on each floor above, Venetian type at ground floor, second floor has additional light to right, all with restored glazing bars, triple dormer and additional one to left. Spring Gardens Road, possibly once a mill leat, passes under No.13.
INTERIORS: In the main, not inspected. No.9, The Boater pub, is much altered on ground floor; staircase remains in situ but boxed in from ground to first floor; first floor rear room contains much-painted plaster frieze and cornice, door cases and doors, chimneypiece. Cellar contains large vaults. Photograph of early C20 by Mowbray Green in the National Monuments Record show the inside ground floor of No.16 a Neo-classical chimneypiece with Adamesque decoration of lyre, urns, garlands and husks with a cast iron grate. Wooden staircase to No.17 with columnar newel posts and plain rails; first floor retains plaster frieze with sphinx and anthemion motif, interior otherwise altered 2001-2.
HISTORY: Argyle Street, first Argyle Buildings, was the extension of the line of Adam's Pulteney Bridge (qv) into Sir William Pulteney's Bathwick estate. The estate passed to his daughter Henrietta Laura in 1792, but building work had already begun on Laura Place in 1788. This terrace, with its northern opposite number, forms a monumental extension northwards from Robert Adam¿s Pulteney Bridge; it commands an imposing position adjoining Great Pulteney Bridge and overlooking the weir, while retaining a number of fine Georgian shop fronts to the street. The contrast between the street and river levels is dramatic, resulting in very substantial basements. No.9 was already the Argyle Tap of the Bath Brewery Co. in 1809. No.12 was J Savage's circulating library in the C19.
SOURCES: Graham Finch, Bath Shopfronts (Bath City Council 1993).
Listing NGR: ST7524664966
