No. 20 and Attached Garden Walls, Balustrade and Gate Piers

Details

VINEYARDS 656-1/31/1771

No.20 and attached garden walls, balustrade and gate piers 12/06/50

GV II*

House, now flats. c1765. Developed by Thomas Omer. MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar to front, ashlar and coursed squared stone, pecked for render, to right side, parapeted roof, Welsh Slate to front, artificial slate to rear, has ashlar left and right-end stacks with early clay pots on coped gable walls. EXTERIOR: A detached, five-bay, Palladian villa front with pedimented centre breaking forward slightly, single storey three-bay extension to right. Three storey, five-bay front. First floor has five plate glass horned sashes in cyma moulded architraves with pulvinated friezes and cornices over to far left and right, three centre windows have similar shouldered architraves with pulvinated friezes and pediments over and moulded stone sills projecting from sill band forming coping to blind balustraded panels below windows. Second floor has five plate glass sashes in cyma moulded architraves. Ground floor has five plate glass sashes in plain reveals with stone sills including one to far right in single storey extension, to left and right of main range with heavy keystones to centre left and right and in extension in openings recessed within arcade, to ground floor centre six-panel door with fielded panels has fanlight with intersecting glazing bars incorporating mitre-shaped lantern deeply recessed in round headed opening. Ground floor has V-jointed rustication with blind arcade of three round headed openings with impost band and projecting keystones, repeated to single-bay front to extension to right, band course over ground floor, sill band to first floor, lintel forming frieze, moulded eaves cornice, with dentils to triangular pediment with pedestals for acroterial ornaments now missing, oculus to tympanum. Rear elevation has half-round stair turret to centre with C20 door in probable former first floor window opening with cyma moulded architrave, frieze and cornice over approached by slate bridge over area to ground floor, four plate glass sashes in cyma moulded architraves with friezes and cornice and stone sills, second floor has four plate glass sashes in cyma moulded architraves, three-light window in similar eaved and shouldered architrave to turret to centre. Plate glass sashes and C20 windows and door to ground floor. Rear garden elevation is dominated by the central projecting bow, containing the stair's half-landings: this endows the rear with a far more architectural character than most Bath terraced houses. INTERIOR: Not inspected, but recorded by Bath Preservation Trust Survey of Interiors (2000). This reports the survival of features Including a cantilevered stone staircase with half-landing in Semi-circular apse-like feature at rear of house, with flared 'crinoline' iron rails and mahogany handrail; ground floor sitting room retains dado rail, walls divided into compartments framed with cable mouldings, plaster modillion cornice to rear; various elements of plasterwork and joinery elsewhere. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Attached garden walls and pair of rusticated ashlar gatepiers with moulded caps, stone balustrade attached to garden wall on right side. HISTORY: This stands on ground formerly the property of Hayne family from 1638 when Thomas Hayne bought it from William Snygge; it passed by inheritance to Charles Hayne in 1750 who cleared it of mortgage and other encumbrances, and by 1756 plans to sell Vineyards to Thomas Omer for building had reached an advanced stage. These were not finally realised until an indenture of 26 February 1765, in which Charles Hayne sold to Thomas Omer, Gent, and Thomas Jelly, Carpenter, his trustee, the site of Vineyards for building at yearly rent of £50. Belmont was constructed on west edge of same ground. Vineyards had previously been used as a vineyard until c1730 when the springs, which watered, it began to fail. The row to north of the Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel was originally called Harlequin Row because of unusual use of brick and stone in construction. An exceptionally ambitious edge-of-town villa, terminating Harlequin Row, designed in a highly fashionable neo-Palladian idiom. The interior was subdivided into three flats in c1973-76. SOURCES: Bath Archaeological Trust/RCHM England: Georgian Bath Historical Map: Southampton: 1989-. Listing NGR: ST7502765444

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