1A AND 1-6, WOOD STREET

Details

WOOD STREET 656-1/15/1918 (North side) Nos.1A AND 1-6 (Consec) 12/06/50

GV I

Six large terrace houses, now offices, with shops. 1729-1734, by John Wood the Elder, display windows 1871, by J Elkington Gill. MATERIALS: Ashlar, rubble to rear, slate roofs. PLAN: Terrace has wide frontage houses with double mansard roofs, and, brought forward and running entire width, very fine later display fronts to common design. At left hand end terrace faces Queen Square, No.1A, and at other end it returns to John Street, terrace articulated, with Nos.2, and 4/5 stepped slightly, c100mm, forward from remainder. EXTERIOR: Three storeys, attic and basement, twenty three windows, all plain sashes, at second floor in eared architraves, in bays 10-14 (No.3) in plain splayed surrounds, first floor also has pulvinated friezes and straight cornice hoods, first floor lights have all been extended downwards, cutting through former sill band. Eleven small two light casement dormers with hipped roofs, but to end house with flat roof. Large plate glass display windows brought forward c1.5m from main front, and framed by single or paired Corinthian half-columns or pilasters, with two or three pane vertical windows on deep stallriser with some circular cast iron vents. Each end short return, with quarter pilaster to wall, half-column, paired half columns located to bays four/five and nine/ten, enclosing pairs of panelled doors to large transom lights, on two steps. Nos.5/6 have C20 set back plate glass display front. Over all continuous unbroken entablature, with lead capping from flat roof. Above second floor modillion cornice with shallow blocking course and parapet returns at left hand end to two bays of No.1A, similar detail to front, with two dormers, with ground floor and basement sash in splayed surrounds, panelled door with architrave and pediment, to left, first floor windows have dropped sills and cornice heads. End bay to west side of Queen Square and set slightly behind adjoining No.4 with which cornice and parapet continuous, platband inscribed QUEEN SQUARE in fine Roman. Roof returns with hipped end, three coped party divisions and four very large stacks, centred to double roof. Return to John Street, with entry to No.6, plain, rendered, with high gable to flat parapet, single sash at each level to right, and two blind lights to left, first floor has sill band. Main display front returns as at other end, further large square display window, and early six panel door with plain fanlight on three steps, in broad plat surround with keystone; cast iron footscraper remains each side of this door. Rear in rubble with various sashes, mostly plain in flush dressed surrounds. INTERIORS: Not inspected. HISTORY: This terrace, designed in Wood's characteristic Palladian idiom, forms the north side of Wood Street, and was part of original layout by Wood, associated with the Square; work on the street may even have preceded that on the square, the east side of which (adjoining these) was the first to be built. As such they are among the very earliest examples of Wood's standard town-house elevation which was to be repeated many times over. The original plan for a palace-fronted terrace with a projecting pedimented centre was dropped early on. The row stands on the site of former fields belonging to Barton's Farm, and the street marked the westward limit of the city's development at the time. Underleases were granted 1729-1731 and they first appear in the rate books in 1734. An early occupant was one of Wood's backers, Richard, Earl Tylney (formerly of the Child banking dynasty, and of Wanstead House in Essex). Wood's original plans for the street were not realised. It makes an interesting contrast to the later Adam-inspired terrace on the other side of the street (Northumberland Buildings qv) of half a century later. These house, together with the east side of Queen Square were the first built of the John Wood development. Under leases were granted 1729-1731 and they first appear in the rate books in 1734.Listed Grade II* as part of the outstanding Queen Square development. The Victorian alterations are of note in their own right, and form some of Bath's best later shop-fronts. SOURCES: T. Mowl and B. Earnshaw, John Wood Architect of Obsession (1988), 6871-73; Graham Finchfield, Shopfront Record (1992); Walter Ison, `The Georgian Buildings of Bath' (2nd ed, 1980), 115-120, 226-228; J. Lees-Milne and D. Ford, Images of Bath (1982).

Listing NGR: ST7486964982

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