Description

QUEEN SQUARE
656-1/30/2446 (East side)

No.2 with railings (Formerly Listed as: QUEEN SQUARE (East side) Nos 1A, 1-4 (consec) & 4A)
12/06/50

GV I

House, now offices. 1729-1734. By John Wood the Elder.
MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar with Welsh slate roof.
PLAN: Grand symmetrical wide frontage house in terrace of six on east side of Queen Square. Double depth plan with central entrance.
EXTERIOR: Three storeys, attic and basement, five windows, all restored six/six sashes. Eight-panel door in Baroque style doorcase with broken pediment: rectangular panel with fruit and flower display and finely carved swags, brackets carved with lion's skin masks. First floor windows have their sills raised to original level, splayed surrounds, cornice heads. Second floor windows have eared architraves. Dripcourse above basement windows, platband above ground floor with very shallow blocking course and parapet, continuous with adjoining No.3. Mansard roof with three flat topped dormers with six/six sashes. Each end of roof has coped party division with shared ashlar stack. Rear elevation not seen.
INTERIOR: Not inspected.
Reconstructed as offices behind existing façade in c.1958.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Basement areas are enclosed by simple cast iron railings on stone curbs, returned to doorway over area bridge.
HISTORY: The houses on east side of Queen Square were the first to be built of John Wood's development. Both No.2 and No.3 were taken by Richard Child, Earl Tylney, possibly explaining why they have same carved doorcase: these doors represent a late flourishing of Baroque stone-carving. John Wood leased the site from Robert Gay from 1728 onwards, and granted underleases in 1729-1731 to a range of developers, and the houses are first recorded as occupied in the rate books in 1734. Wood originally intended to level the sloping site, but this was abandoned on the grounds of cost. Queen Square is of exceptional importance as the first large-scale instance of town planning to arrive at Bath. Wood drew on precedents in contemporary London house-building and, through the courageous and skilful pursuit of his vision, created a monumental ensemble on a fresh sloping site some distance to the west of the former city walls. Each side of the square forms a symmetrical composition, but none of the sides are alike. Queen Square forms the earliest, and lowest, element in the sequence of set-pieces by the Woods which culminates with the Royal Crescent.
SOURCES: Tim Mowl and Brian Earnshaw, 'John Wood. Architect of Obsession' (1988), 65-86; Walter Ison, 'The Georgian Buildings of Bath' (2nd ed. 1980), 115-120, 226-28.

Listing NGR: ST7484565011

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17526023

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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