1-7, Great Pulteney Street Bath, England

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GREAT PULTENEY STREET (North side) Nos.1-7 (Consec) (Formerly Listed as: GREAT PULTENEY STREET (North side) Nos 1-7, 8-10, 10A & 11-20, 21, 22-30, 31-34, 35 & 36, 37, 38-40 (consec)) 11/08/72

GV I

Includes: Nos.36 AND 37 HENRIETTA STREET. Includes: Nos. 4, 5 AND 6 LAURA PLACE. Seven symmetrical terrace houses, now residential apartments, forming part of a unified terrace of twenty houses. 1789-1795. By Thomas Baldwin, possibly incorporating work by John Eveleigh. MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, double pitched slate mansard roofs with paired C20 dormers and moulded stacks to party walls. PLAN: Double depth plans with rear additions . EXTERIOR: Three storeys with attics and basements and sub-basements to rear. Seventeen-window range. Continuous modillion cornice and entablature supported by grand order of Corinthian columns rising from ground floor cornice. Moulded sill courses to upper floors, rusticated ground floor with radial voussoirs to flat-arched recesses, plinth. Six/six-pane sash windows, that to centre of first floor flanked by narrow paired pilasters supporting wide pediment with triple festoon to frieze. Three central windows flanked by paired pilasters with window between. Windows to outer ranges also flanked by pilasters forming one:three:one:three:one:three:one design. Outer groups of three windows have taller semicircular arched window to centre of first floor with radial glazing bars and cornice on consoles and double festoons to frieze. Former doors, now windows. Entrance now through C20 large slightly projecting semicircular arched porch with fanlight over half glazed doors with wrought iron grilles to glazing. Canted left return in Henrietta Street pedimented with similar features, blind windows to right and no pilasters. INTERIORS: Not inspected. HISTORY: Great Pulteney Street forms the principal element of the late C18 development of the Bathwick estate east of the River Avon. Laid out on an unusually generous scale, 100ft wide, it is one of the most imposing urban set pieces of its day in Britain. Robert Adam prepared designs in 1782, but Thomas Baldwin was responsible for the eventual design. Leases were granted from 1788 but progress was delayed as a result of the building crash of the mid-1790s. No. 6 is noteworthy as Thomas Baldwin's own house from 1791 until 1794 when bankruptcy forced its sale. This group was amalgamated to become the Pulteney Hotel in 1904 when the interiors were rearranged by Silcock and Reay (the letters P & H remain on the single entrance door grille). The hotel was requisitioned by the Admiralty in 1939. They subsequently became an apartment building called Connaught Mansions: consent to create 61 residential units was granted in 1971 (BCC planning file). SOURCES: (Ison W: The Georgian Buildings of Bath: Bath: 1980-: 165; Colvin H: A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1660-1840: London: 1978: 85; The Bath Chronicle: Images of Bath: Derby: 1994).

Listing NGR: ST7532565060