Details
BATH STREET
(South side)
Nos. 1-8 (Consec)
12/06/50
GV I
Shops with accommodation over. 1791 (foundation stone laid) - 1794, some post World War II repair and restoration, especially upper floors of No.7. By Thomas Baldwin, for the Bath Corporation following the Bath Improvement Act of 1789.
MATERIALS: Bath limestone ashlar with Welsh slate roofs.
PLAN: Double depth plan, with the ground floor recessed behind a colonnade.
EXTERIOR: Three storeys plus attics. Stall Street elevation (1 plus No. 36 Stall Street qv) has six bays over seven columns of which four right hand bays are No.1 Bath Street. Shopfronts to section have deep fascia with running swag over, and egg-and-dart cornice to ground floor footway ceiling. First floor windows have pedimented surrounds to window two and four as below. Roof of No.1 has two flat-topped dormers and stone stack. Bath Street elevation has twenty one bays over Ionic colonnade of twenty two columns; each house has three bays, but there have been planning changes. Ground floor colonnade paved and has some shopfronts to semi uniform design (mostly 1980's), that of No.7 perhaps original. No.1 has late C20 double shop front. No. 2 has late C20 shop front. Nos. 3 and 4 have reproduction shop front with three light window to left (No.3) and double panelled doors and late C20 front with cash dispensers to right (No.4). Nos. 5 and 6 have reproduction shopfronts with six panel door with circular fan light over between (that to No. 6 is 1991 by David Brain Partnership). No.7 has shop front which continues round the corner into Hot Bath Street, this one appears partially original, c1791, restored 1987. No. 8 has reproduction shop front within main facade, for additional bay see below. Also six panel doors to upper floors, while existing Bilbery Lane bridged in centre of row (between Nos. 4 and 5) by three bays carried through house on six additional Ionic columns. Columns carry continuous entablature which first floor windows sit directly on. Centre first floor windows (of each house) are pedimented and have friezes decorated with swags, paterae and tall consoles similar to those used on shopfronts in wood, double pilaster strips with consoles as capitals. First window from Stall Street end on both floors blind. All windows are six/six sashes in plain reveals apart from those mentioned above, many are reproduction with horns but some appear original, see Nos. 5 and 6. Continuous Pompeian scroll forms sill band for second floor. Cornice, parapet, mansard roof, flat topped dormers, two to each house with six/six sashes, but many of them have been doubled in size, tall ashlar stacks, some with pots and some without. Design continues round return of buildings in Hot Bath Street, (Nos. 7 and 8), five bays over six columns, first floor has outer and central windows pedimented, three dormers, outer two being paired. Entrance to No. 8 an additional narrow bay which joins main colonnade to Hot Bath. Ground floor has six panel door with six pane sidelights and rectangular light over, all slightly bowed and appears to be early C19 shop front, though very small. First floor has arch headed six/six sash flanked by recesses carrying statues of Kings Osric and Edgar from old Guildhall, (built 1625, demolished 1777), above small three/three sash, cornice, parapet, roof not visible. South return has blind windows, tall stone chimney behind. Rear elevation also ashlar and has some pantile roofing. Originally flat fronted, it now has various extensions to do with the introduction of sanitation.
INTERIORS: Not inspected but have clearly undergone considerable alterations (Nos. 3 and 4 rebuilt internally 1963), and may bear little relationship to their original state. It should be noted that the two segments at either end of Bath Street are to different designs; and also that the two Stall Street segments (Nos. 36 and 37 Stall Street qv,) are different.
HISTORY: Bath Street was designed by Baldwin and built under the provisions of the 1789 Bath Improvement Act. The first stone was laid on 31 March 1791. The result, linking the Cross Bath and the King¿s Bath, was an exemplary piece of neoclassical town improvement showing the influence of the Adams. The colonnades were intended to shelter pedestrians, and showed the influence of thoroughly up-to-date thinking, influenced by French examples, of planned shopping developments. No. 8 is of particular interest. Built in 1797 to Palmer¿s designs (re council minute books) it was opened as Bath Corporation's `House of Antiquities¿ in 1800, it was later the house of the Master of the Baths. The statues, of King Coel and King Edgar, are late C15, and were salvaged from the old Guildhall on its demolition in 1775. This museum has been described as `probably the earliest archaeological museum in Britain to be established by a municipal authority¿ (Woodward), and shows Bath¿s precocious sense of its own past. Extensive alterations to the row have taken place in recent years as part of the resurrection of Bath Spa.
SOURCES: Walter Ison, The Georgian Buildings of Bath (Second Edition, 1980), 170-71; Thom Gorst, Bath. An Architectural Guide (1997), 104; Christopher Woodward, `O Lord! Bath is Undone¿ in Bath History VII (1998), 17-18.
Listing NGR: ST7499464693
