Description

ST MARY'S BUILDINGS
656-1/40/1584 (East side)

Nos.1-9 (Consec)

(Formerly Listed as:
WELLS ROAD Nos 1 & 2
St Mary's Buildings)
12/06/50
II

Nine terrace houses, steeply stepped. c1820. Attributed to John Pinch.
MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, slate roofs to front, concrete tile to rear (except No.4).
PLAN: Double depth plan.
EXTERIOR: Three storey houses, each two windows wide, with arched openings to ground floor with entrance to left. Plat bands, triglyph frieze, cornice and parapets swoop up to higher neighbour to right. Sash windows above stone sills, eight/eight panes to round and second floors, six/six to first floor. Six-panel doors under fanlight (that to No.1 replaced with a C20 glazed door). Ashlar stacks to each ridge. No.1 (St Mary's Lodge)has extra C20 bay at left hand end with central entry from north: this and No.2 are careful rebuilds. No.5 has full width ornamental iron balustrade at first floor level. Paired gate piers with moulded caps to front walls. Rear in coursed and squared stone, but to right of each house part in ashlar, probably representing later fill to deep light area, and cavetto cornice to blocking and parapet, stepped and not swept. Most houses have twelve-pane sash at three levels, to left, and single sash, sometimes in sixteen panes, to right, at staircase, with door to yard. No.4 has glazed door at first floor level. Nos 1-3 have deep later wings, and each house has small enclosed yard, mostly with lean-to unit to one side, stepped yard external wall in ashlar block, rising approx 2.5 to 3.5m above sloping site.
INTERIORS: Not inspected. Past inspections report the presence of a stone stair and reeded chimneypieces to No.6, and in No.9 the presence of a closed string wooden stair and similar chimneypieces.
HISTORY: Pinch¿s signature appears on some of the deeds. A fine terrace, with practically no external alteration. The upswept parapet motif, used to unite a terrace composition while overcoming the difficulties of a sloping site, was a characteristic motif of John Pinch's and much-employed on the Bathwick Estate from c.1810.
SOURCES: See RCHME Report and Survey of No.6 in NMR, ref. 97486; Neil Jackson, 'Nineteenth Century Bath. Architects and Architecture' (1991), 18; Maurice Scott, 'Discovering Widcombe and Lyncombe, Bath' (2nd ed. 1993), 66; Robert Bennett, `The Last of the Georgian Architects of Bath¿, Bath History IX (2002), 100; Bath City Council planning files.

Listing NGR: ST7477564262

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26673916

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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