Ralph Allen's House Bath, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

YORK STREET 656-1/41/1938 (South side) Ralph Allen's House

(Formerly Listed as: TERRACE WALK Ralph Allen's House) 12/06/50

GV I

House. 1727. By John Wood the Elder. MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar with pantile roof. PLAN: Built as single depth extension, square in plan, behind elaborate Palladian facade. EXTERIOR: Three storeys, three bay opulent Palladian frontys, with order of giant Corinthian half columns over rusticated basement. Basement was originally an open loggia to Ralph Allens's garden, but now filled in. Central arched opening with keystone, nine/nine pane sash window with nine/nine with thickish glazing bars. Flanked by narrow flat-headed keyed openings with four/six sashes. First floor conceived as Serliana but with openings separated by giant columns. A huge central sash window, thirty/twenty-four pane, with radiating fan head, flanked by narrow sashes, six/six, with balustraded aprons. Upper floor has six/six sash flanked by four/four, relief swags on outer aprons. Pediment with oculus surrounded by elaborate wreathing, with balls on blocks at apexes in place of acroteria. Ridge stacks with pots. Three window range to south, of three storeys also, with rusticated basement, windows within aedicular surrounds (central one to first floor with pediment), richly carved garlands of flowers to aprons below second floor windows; this range connected to principal elevation with a ragged junction of rough masonry in corner. North range has gone. INTERIOR: Not inspected; believed to be much altered, and now in office use. HISTORY: Ralph Allen built this on to his house in Lilliput Alley in 1727 (qv No. 1 and 2 North Parade Passage). The architect, Wood, refers to it as having ..... basement storey sustaining a double storey under the crowning, and this is surmounted by an attic which created a sixth rate house and a sample for the greatest magnificence that was ever proposed by me for our city houses.¿ It was originally entered through No.2 North Parade Passage, to which it was an addition, but it is now separated from this property and is a part of No.2 Church Street (qv) which adjoins it to the west. The house, an early work of Wood¿s in Bath, was built asa prestige project, a business base as well as a home¿ (Mowl & Earnshaw) and was designed to showcase the rising Palladian style, and contrast with the Baroque buildings then in fashion. The portico front was originally flanked by side bays and projecting three-bay wings, creating a three-sided courtyard open to the east; the north wing is now detached and subsumed within No.2 Church Street. Now hemmed in by later buildings, its setting has been utterly transformed and Ralph Allen¿s Sham Castle (q.v.), built to align with this house, is no longer visible from its exceptionally large window. The entrance between Nos 1 and 2 Terrace Walk (qv) is now blocked, and this building can be approached and seen from York Street. SOURCES: Walter Ison, The Georgian Buildings of Bath (2nd ed. 1980), 112-3, 124; Bath Archaeological Trust/RCHM England, Georgian Bath Historical Map (1989); E. Holland, The Kingston Estate within the walled City of Bath (1992); T. Mowl and B. Earnshaw, John Wood Architect of Obsession (1988), 45-49.

Listing NGR: ST7513964702