1-9, SION HILL PLACE

Details

SION HILL PLACE 656-1/15/1493 (North side) Nos.1-9 (Consec)

(Formerly Listed as: SION HILL PLACE "Summerhill" & Nos 1-9 (consec)) 12/06/50

GV I

Nine terrace houses, formerly symmetrical. 1817-1820 with C20 additions. By John Pinch the Elder. MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, roofs unseen, moulded stacks, some with hand-thrown chimney pots to party walls. EXTERIOR: Four storeys including attic storey, and basement. Each house of two bays except No.5 (to centre under pediment) and Nos. 1 and 9 (to ends) of three bays, with full height segmental bay windows, projecting forward. Terrace has continuous coped parapet, cornice and frieze over three/six-pane attic windows, second floor cornice with Vitruvian scroll frieze and sill band to six/six-pane sash windows, six/nine-pane sash windows and delicate cast iron balconies carried on consoles to first floor of each house, six/six-pane sash windows, ground floor platband and banded rustication with incised voussoirs to ground floor, semicircular arches to cobweb fanlights over reeded lintels with plain panels to centres, and inverted corners to the upper panels of six-panel doors. Entrances to terminal houses, formerly in returns, now three storey, double depth, set back wings. No.1 to left considerably enlarged to left and connected with Summerhill (qv) in 1930s. Set back wing to left continues character of terrace. Doorcase has engaged Tuscan columns supporting triglyph frieze and blocking course over wide segmental fanlight with leaded glazing and small hexagonal panes margin lights flanking door. First floor balcony of bowed right range originally terminal of terrace, curves to fit bow. Nos 2-5 have doors to left. No.5 to centre, has sunblind boxes to attic storey and sliding louvred shutters to first and ground floors. No.6-9 have doors to the right. Bow to left of No.9 (Consulat de Monaco) similar to that of No.1. Two-window right wing, probably c1930 and similar to that of No.1, reflects details of terrace, set well back with enclosed porch in angle. It has engaged Roman Doric columns supporting triglyph frieze with swag to centre, cornice and blocking course, paterae to spandrels of wide segmental arched fanlight with leaded cobweb glazing and small hexagonal panes to margin lights flanking C20 door. INTERIORS: Not inspected. No.1 was remodelled internally for Ernest Cook during the 1930s, using the local building firm of Axford & Smith; they inserted a new staircase, doors and metal grilles from a London town house ('formerly the residence of the Princess Royal'); more doors with surrounds and flooring came from Chesterfield House; he also remodelled basement and attic, and refitted main rooms with reproduction chimneypieces (see 'Kingswood School Magazine' vol.xxxi, February 1956, 3). 1947 photographs in National Monuments Record show the presence of large openings between reception rooms with moulded surrounds, a fine plaster ceiling inside dining room of No.5, with ceiling rose within lozenge and delicate cornice, and another to ground floor front room with palm frond and rosette decoration to outer edge of ceiling. Interiors Survey by Bath Preservation Trust of No.5 confirms presence of fine marble chimneypieces and plasterwork, hall with decorated soffit and glazed panel over inner door, stone cantilevered staircase. HISTORY: Built on a piece of ground formerly named Lower Crannells, a Bath painter named William Hayes took out a building lease on it in 1809; John Pinch was the architect (name appears on building lease). Daniel Aust, builder of Walcot, was responsible for the construction of No.5 and perhaps others. One of the finest, as well as one of the latest, palace-fronted terraces in Bath, and regarded by some as Pinch's finest terrace; its remote location and elaborate screen of gates and railings on Sion Hill [q.v.] produced a prestigious and extremely secluded development that was sited to take full advantage of the westward prospect. It is the northernmost of the urban set-pieces of Bath. SOURCES: W. Ison, 'The Georgian Buildings of Bath' (2nd ed. 19: Bath: 1980), 188-89; Neil Jackson, 'Nineteenth Century Bath. Architects and Architecture' (1991), 21; Robert Bennett, `The Last of the Georgian Architects of Bath¿, Bath History IX (2002), 98.

Listing NGR: ST7417866243

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