General Wolfe's House, With Railings

Details

TRIM STREET 656-1/40/1693 (North side) No.5 General Wolfe's House, with Railings

(Formerly Listed as: TRIM STREET (North side) No.5) 12/06/50

GV I

House, now offices. c1720 with C20 additions. Thomas Greenway has been suggested as architect. MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, roof not visible. EXTERIOR: Two storeys and basement, five window front, all nine/six-pane sash in architraves with slight bolection mould, with fielded panelled aprons below first floor, and plain aprons to ground floor. Basement, in painted stonework, has two C20 lights in splayed surrounds each side of centre. Six-panel door, on landing to five steps, set in deep reveals, with moulded architrave, framed by fluted Ionic pilasters carrying entablature and segmental pediment with martial relief of piled arms in tympanum, placed here after 1759, when General Wolfe briefly occupied house. Central window also framed, with fluted Corinthian pilasters, very worn, and segmental pediment. Each end of front channelled pilasters to both floors, with full width moulded cornice at each level. Top floor also has plain blocking course with parapet, probably rebuilt, in less refined ashlar than remainder. Pilasters appear to have been channelled in-situ, joints do not always correspond with masonry beds. INTERIOR: Not inspected, but Green refers to unusual stone raised and fielded Panelling, emulating joinery, to entrance hall. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Basement areas enclosed by simple cast iron railings on stone curb, returned at ends and to doorway. Stone flagged pavement remains here, but not the setted roadway, which is preserved further to east of street. HISTORY: The most florid of houses in Trim Street, in a provincial Baroque style, showing the most progressive design tendencies of its day. It has lost its original steep roof (qv measured drawing in Green, op cit, p16). A Bath bronze plaque records Wolfe's brief stay here. Just how old the martial relief within the tympanum actually is, is unclear: according to Green, Wolfe was staying with his parents at Bath when he received the order from the elder Pitt to proceed to Quebec in 1759, `and it is therefore probable that the weapons of warfare carved in the pediment over the entrance were a later addition¿. The tympanum is thus retrospective Baroque revival. Trim Street was laid out in 1707, on land owned by George Trim, just outside the mediaeval walls, and was a significant development outside of the city walls. The street retains its flagged pavements and sett-covered roadway. SOURCES: Mowbray Green, 'The Eighteenth Century Architecture of Bath' (1904), 15-17 & pl. IV; Architectural Review XVII (May 1905), 102; Walter Ison, 'The Georgian Buildings of Bath' (2nd ed 1980), 104; Howard Colvin, 'A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1660-1840' (2nd ed. 1978), 364; RCHME Report in NMR, ref. 82859.

Listing NGR: ST7492364916

Legacy

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Legacy System number:

510792

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LBS

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