Summerhill and Attached Balustrades

Details

SION HILL PLACE 656-1/15/456 (North side) Summerhill and attached balustrades (Formerly Listed as: SION HILL PLACE "Summerhill" & Nos 1-9 (consec)) 11/08/72

GV II*

House, now school (part of Kingswood School, qv Lansdown Road), forming a continuation to left of No.1 Sion Hill Place (qv). Mid-1930s, incorporating as its West front a facade of c1738 by John Wood the Elder, removed from house in Chippenham and grafted onto new block in 1936. MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, roof unseen. EXTERIOR: Two storeys, seven bays. West garden front has balustraded panels to parapet with moulded coping and plinth, modillion cornice and frieze; pediments, Corinthian pilasters and blind balustrades to first floor windows, ground floor platband over chamfered rustication and plinth, with paired Corinthian engaged columns bearing a pediment with pineapple finials. Implied Venetian window to first floor consisting of semicircular arched six/nine-pane sash window with one and a quarter pilasters supporting an entablature at impost level repeated between paired outer columns over narrow sashes with quarter pilasters. Ground floor central window is arched nine/three sash window, flanked by slender two/two sashed lights. Two outer ranges to first floor of each side articulated by Corinthian pilasters flanking six/six-pane sash windows, those to first floor pedimented. Additional frieze between capitals of columns and pilasters ornately carved with masks flanked by fruit and flowers. Parapet continues without balustrades or modillions to cornice, along returns. To right and centre of first floor of left return semicircular arched recesses with raised keystones over six/six-pane sash windows, to left of each is lead rainwater head and downpipe. To left Venetian window over enclosed porch with pediment on brackets and set back six-panel door. To ground floor centre and right are flat arched recesses with six/six-pane sash window to right and blind window to centre. Three storey, three-window range right return in Summerhill place (qv), (not aligned with it) has moulded architraves to blind windows to upper floors. Centre steps forward under modillion cornice. INTERIOR: Not inspected, but thought to include panelled rooms from the Chippenham house. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: West front has curved steps up to raised forecourt enclosed by fine balustrades attached to each corner that extend approx 8m forward and curve inward to flank steps; these date from the initial, Eveleigh, phase of Summerhill in the late 1780s. HISTORY: The present building was erected to the east of the site of the first house on this site. This was built for the affluent doctor, Caleb Hillier Parry, who was also involved in the promotion of Camden Crescent to Eveleigh's design. This house, also by Eveleigh, was among the earliest seats to be built in the city's north-west fringes, and was sited so as to take advantage of the fine picturesque hilltop situation: the surviving balustrade echoes this former amenity. The house was occupied by Sir Robert Blaine, sometime Mayor of Bath, from 1867-97, and burnt down in 1912. In the mid-1930s Ernest Cook, the newly-retired grandson of travel agent Thomas Cook and occupant of Nos 1,2 and 9 Sion Hill Place, saved the house from demolition and extended his Bath house by adding on this important salvaged example of Wood's work. He created a fitting setting for his noted picture collection by using Bath builders Axford & Smith to enlarge his house using the Chippenham front (from Nos. 24 and 25 High Street, now Woolworth's); new masonry side walls were constructed and picture galleries, known as the Chippenham Galleries, on two floors, 45ft by 30ft, formed inside The Wood façade has probably been moved not once but twice. It is believed to have been designed for the house at Bowden Hill, Wilts of Benjamin Styles MP in 1738, but after his death the unfinished house was sold to a Chippenham clothier Thomas Figgins and re-erected there between 1749 and 1777. Stylistically it resembles Wood the Elder's designs for the Exchange at Bristol. Cook's mansion was purchased by Kingswood School in 1956. SOURCES: Mowl, Tim and Earnshaw, Brian: 'John Wood. Architect of Obsession' (Bath, 1988), 175-6; 'The Kingswood School Magazine' vol.xxxi, February 1956, 1-6.

Listing NGR: ST7413566253

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

510395

Legacy System:

LBS

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