Details
BATH
656-1/0/0 KELSTON ROAD
15-OCT-10 (South side)
GARDEN PAVILION 20M SOUTH-EAST OF BEAU
LIEU LODGE
(Formerly listed as:
KELSTON ROAD
GARDEN PAVILION 20M SOUTH-WEST OF BEAU
LIEU LODGE)
II
A late-C18, single storey garden pavilion, with a square plan built in coursed limestone rubble with ashlar quoins. A timber- framed, pyramid roof (now lost) formerly rose above an ashlar-coped parapet with cornicing. The doorway in the northern elevation is set under a two-pointed arch, now partially blocked with a similar pointed arched window in the western elevation.
HISTORY
The pavilion, with abutting walls and steps, stands in the centre of a late-C18 terraced garden, further improved in the late-C19, which offers extensive views of the surrounding landscape. The main house, Beaulieu Lodge (formerly known as Beaulieu House), probably dates from c1772, though it is not certain who built it. According to George Monkwell, as recorded in his supplement to his essay
'Literature and Literati of Bath' published in 1859, Beaulieu was built for the East India Company Servant, John Zephaniah Holwell (1711-1798), famous for his account of the Black Hole disaster in Fort William in Calcutta in 1756. However, more recently it has been suggested that it was the playwright and satirist Richard Tickell (1751-1793) who built Beaulieu (WF Rae, 2004).
The Tithe Map for Weston (published 1846), names the site as 'Beaulieu and Pleasure Gardens'. It is not known if the garden pavilion is exactly contemporary with the house, however it may relate to the insertion of three pairs of two-pointed Gothic arch windows in the lower ground floor of the rear canted bay in the main house, as it shares stylistic detail. In 1885, Beaulieu was purchased by a local traveller
and gardener called Alexander Hill Gray, who further improved the gardens, as recorded in 1899 and 1925. The only window in the garden pavilion looks across the River Avon to Kelston Park (qv), laid out by the landscape architect Lancelot Brown between 1767 and 1768.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION
The garden building to the rear of Beaulieu Lodge, 227 Kelston Road, Bath, is designated at grade II for the following principal reasons:
* ARCHITECTURAL INTEREST: As an interesting and increasingly rare example of a late-C18 garden building with good quality architectural detailing matching that of the main house.
* HISTORIC INTEREST: Its association with Beaulieu a notable late-C18 villa estate built on the outskirts of Bath.
* GROUP VALUE: It forms an important group with the main house it served, now called Beaulieu Lodge (listed at grade II) and continues to form an important focal point within the late-C18 terraced garden.
SOURCES
Rae, WF, 'Tickell, Richard (1751-1793), Oxford Dictionary of National Biographies (2004, online edn 2010). Retrieved on 24 August 2010 from http://www.oxforddnb.com
Prior, DL, 'Holwell, John Zephaniah (1711-1798), Oxford Dictionary of National Biographies (2004,
online edn 2008). Retrieved on 7 September 2010 from http://www.oxforddnb.com
Monkland, G, Supplement to "Literature and Literati of Bath" (1859), 8-9 (NB Monkland's Literature and Literati of Bath was first published in 1854)
'Beaulieu and its Treasures. Ten Thousand Rose Trees and Myriads of Flowers', The Bath and County Graphic (1899), 49-50
Gray, AH, Sixty Years Ago - Wanderings of a Stoneyhurst Boy in Many Lands
(1925).
Maps:
Tithe Map for Weston (1846)
OS Map 1:2500 (1888)
