Details
RUSSELL STREET
656-1/30/1460 (East side)
No.18 and attached railings
(Formerly Listed as:
RUSSELL STREET
Nos.1-18 (Consec))
12/06/50
GV II
House. c1771-1773. Architect: John Wood the Younger.
MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar to front and right side, ashlar and Render to basement, ashlar and rubble to rear, triple pile parapeted mansard roof with three hips to front, with very large Welsh Slates, ashlar stacks with some early clay pots on coped party wall to left adjoining stack to No.17 Russell Street (qv), and to rear right on coped party wall adjoining No.16 Bennett Street (qv) and rear left.
EXTERIOR: House at junction of Russell Street and Bennett Street, has entrance front to Russell Street, elevation to right side to Bennett Street in matching style, house almost entirely enclosed to left side and rear by adjoining building. Three-bay front to Russell Street has three storeys, attic and basement, five windows wide. First floor has, to left, three grouped plate glass horned sashes, narrower to left and right, in splayed ovolo moulded architraves with continuous frieze and cornice and lowered stone sill with continuous wrought iron balconette, similar plate glass horned sashes in similar architraves with wrought iron balconette to centre and right. Second floor has three plate glass horned sashes in ovolo moulded architraves with stone sills. Ground floor has, to left, three grouped plate glass horned sashes, narrower to left and right, in plain reveals with continuous stone sill, to right three similar blind windows, to centre six-panel door with flush beaded and fielded panels in reeded timber surround with single pane sidelights and decorative fanlight over, within splayed round headed reveal with zinc tent canopy on wrought iron brackets over. Pennant paved crossover with wrought iron footscraper flush with pavement. Basement has to left eight/eight-sash with some glazing bars cut out of upper sash, in plain reveal with splayed jambs with stone sill, to right two/six-sash in plain reveal with stone sill. C19 half-glazed door and boarded screen under crossover to left side, to right small eight-pane fixed light window in face of wall, unmoulded six-panel door in ashlar infilling under crossover. Three single dormers with six/six-sashes. Band course over ground floor with incised street name `RUSSELL STREET' to right, modillion eaves cornice and coped parapet. Lead hopperhead and downpipe attached to left. Elevation to right of Bennett Street has three storeys, attic and basement, three-window range. First floor has three plate glass horned sashes in splayed ovolo moulded architraves with friezes and cornices with lowered stone sills with wrought iron balconettes. Second floor has three plate glass horned sashes in ovolo moulded architraves with stone sills. Ground floor has three plate glass horned sashes in splayed reveals with stone sills. Basement has sashes in splayed reveal with stone sill to centre, similar blind window in plain reveal to left, to right extension in area with six-pane window to left side blocks further opening with three fixed panes in splayed reveal above roof of extension, limestone area steps with Pennant treads and wrought iron handrails to left at angle of area. Single dormer with six/six-sash. Band course over ground floor and modillion eaves cornice and coped parapet continued from Russell Street elevation to left. Single window elevation with dormer to rear left not clearly visible.
INTERIOR: Not inspected, but recorded by Bath Preservation Trust survey of interiors. Staircase at back of central hall: wooden treads, slender column and vase balusters three per tread, upswept wooden handrail, columnar newel posts. Sitting room to right of entrance with fielded panelling, numerous other features.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Attached wrought iron railings and two gates with shaped heads on painted limestone bases.
HISTORY: Russell Street developed by John Wood in conjunction with Assembly Rooms and east end of Rivers Street on part of Holdstock's Garden or Russell's Close bought by Wood and Andrew Sproule, his trustee, from Thomas and Daniel Omer 30th December 1768.
SOURCES: Bath City Record Office, Deed Packet: 2382A 15 RUSSELL ST; T. Thorp T, `Plan of the Parish of Walcot ... Surveyed for - Gay Esq 1740'; Walter Ison, `The Georgian Buildings of Bath' ((2nd ed. 1980), 156.
Listing NGR: ST7486665362
