37 Stall Street and Arlington House flats 10, 11, 21, 22, 32, 33 and public areas only, Bath, Bath and North East Somerset

Summary

The north-eastern part of Thomas Baldwin's 1791-1794 Bath Street development of shops with accommodation over, rebuilt internally around 1960.

Description

The north-eastern part of Thomas Baldwin's 1791 - 1794 Bath Street development of shops with accommodation over, rebuilt internally around 1960.

MATERIALS: the original six inch Bath stone ashlar facade of the late-C18 development was retained in the 1959 rebuilding, with steel and concrete structure behind, faced in Bath stone.

PLAN: the building includes the six bays and end quadrant at the north-eastern end of Bath Street..

EXTERIOR: the Bath Street development is of three storeys with attics above. At ground floor level there is an Ionic colonnade. At this address, there is a modern shop front behind the colonnade of the quadrant, and the entrance to Arlington House through a modern door, recessed behind terrazzo paving.

Windows above are sashes in plain reveals of the late-C18 type. The middle windows on the Bath Street elevation and the second bay window of the quadrant have pediments supported on scrolled consoles and carved swags above the windows. There is a platband below the second floor windows with Vitruvian scroll detailing. Above the parapet is a mansard roof with dormers. There is a single bay on Stall street adjacent to the main block of Arlington House. This bay dates from the 1860s realignment with the Grand Pump Room Hotel.

The remainder of Arlington House is excluded from the listing.

INTERIOR: the interiors of the building date from the 1959 - 1961 rebuilding. The ground floor shops have modern interiors. Arlington House has communal stairs with solid balustrades and timber handrails, and individual flats have some parquet flooring.

Flats 10, 11, 21, 22, 32 and 33 Arlington House are in the original C18 portion of the building, and these are included along with the public areas which fall within that footprint. The interior of the premises at ground floor level is excluded from the listing. The remainder of Arlington House to the north is also excluded from the listing.

History

The development of Bath Street was enabled by the Bath Improvement Act of 1789 which gave powers to City Corporation to purchase, demolish and rebuild properties in the name of civic improvement. The focus of the Act was to be the area at the heart of the old city around the baths and Pump Room, and the approaches to these. Plans were laid out by Thomas Baldwin and Bath Street was built between 1791 and 1794. Baldwin was one of the principal designers of Georgian Bath. He had been working in the city since around 1776 and subsequently became City Surveyor. He was responsible for some of the city's most famous urban set-pieces, including Great Pulteney Street and the Bathwick estate.

The new Bath Street provided a suitable urban setting which tied in with Baldwin's new colonnades in front of the Abbey and the Pump Room, and with the Cross Bath at the other end of the new street. At both ends there are large quadrants providing grand open spaces at the centre of this part of the city. The buildings had shops with accommodation over and wide colonnades which provided cover for walkers and sedan chairs travelling along the street between the baths. The development represents the height of fashion in mid-Georgian polite urban architecture.

To the north of this development stood the White Hart Hotel on Stall Street. This was demolished around 1865 and replaced by the Grand Pump Room Hotel, built in a lively French Renaissance style by Wilson and Willcox and which filled the block up to Cheap Street. The building of this new hotel also involved the removal of the two end bays of the north-eastern concave of the Bath Street development, to align it with the new street frontage. The hotel was itself demolished in around 1959, when Arlington House was built.

Arlington House was built between 1959 and 1961 to designs by architects Kenneth Wakeford, Jerram and Harris. This involved the rebuilding of this end of the Bath Street development behind the facade, with just the 6" ashlar frontage retained and restored, and an entirely new building on the hotel site. Earlier plans for the development show a more modernist proposal with some classical detailing; these were later altered to the neoclassically inspired design which stands today. The building provided shops at ground floor level with flats above.

Reasons for Listing

The north-eastern part of Thomas Baldwin's 1791-1794 Bath Street development is listed at Grade I for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as part of a set-piece example of late-C18 urban design and architecture at the heart of the city of Bath;
* for its sophisticated architectural detailing, composition and planning with good quality stonework.

Historic interest:

* as one of the key pieces of urban design in the development of Bath during the late-C18;
* for its association with Thomas Baldwin, a key figure in the development of Bath in the late-C18.

Group value:

* with the remainder of Bath Street and the nearby Pump Rooms.

External Links

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