Description

This list entry was subject to a minor enhancement on 6 July 2017.

656-1/32/1652

SYDNEY PLACE (West side)
Nos.1-12 (Consec) and attached railings and gates

12/06/50

GV
I
Twelve symmetrical terrace houses (originally fourteen, see below). 1792-1796. Designed by Thomas Baldwin.

MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, rubblestone to rear, double pitched slate mansard roofs with various C19 and C20 dormers and moulded stacks to coped party walls.

PLAN: Double depth plans.

EXTERIOR: Palace-fronted terrace consisting of three storey houses with attics and basements, each of three bays apart from No.12, which now incorporates Nos 12-14. Central and terminal houses, with pediments, step slightly forward. Doorway surrounds with vermiculated rustication to semicircular arched entrances with set back eight-panel doors with fanlights. Continuous returned coped parapet, cornice, frieze second and first floor sill bands and ground floor platband. Windows above doors (except to central and terminal houses) have moulded architraves flanked by slender pilasters with foliate capitals supporting dentil cornices. Formerly with six/six-pane sash windows, now with mainly plate glass sashes, six/six-pane sashes to first and ground floors; lowered sills and splayed reveals to numerous fronts. Return elevation to west (or left) end of terrace, with four blind openings per floor (rearmost pair to ground floor now open).

No.1: Central first floor window to left, flanked by paired pilasters and consoles supporting dentil cornice over frieze with double looped garlands flanked by paterae. Door to right.
No.2 has door to right with moulded architrave and cornice to window above.
No.3 similar with cobweb fanlight.
No.4 has balconettes to upper windows. Plaque records Jane Austen's residence in this house in 1801-1805 (see History below).
No.5 has balconettes to second, first and ground floor windows.
No.5 similar with cobweb fanlight.
No.6 has simple fanlight with radial glazing bars.
Nos 7 and 8 under central pediment, have paired doors with rusticated ashlar surrounds, paired windows to centre of first floor under shared cornice and ornamental frieze. No.7 has heavy cast iron balconettes to first floor. No.8 has simple fanlight with radial glazing bars.
No.9 has similar fanlight, chamfered arrises, and segmental plan balconettes to first floor. Door to right with Coade stone surround.
No.10 has radial glazing bars to fanlight over door to right.
No.11 has delicate cobweb fanlight with lead ornaments.
No.12 has balconettes to second floor and centre of first floor and cobweb fanlight. The former Nos. 13 and 14 incorporated into this number.
Return to Sutton Street to south: four blind windows per floor (ground floor left hand pair opened up); plat bands at each floor level, and sill band at first floor level.

INTERIORS: Not inspected. 1946 photographs in the National Monuments Record record presence of inner door to hall with fanlight and reeded architrave, reeded pilasters carrying arch over foot of stairs, shallow arch between reception rooms with entwined husk decoration, chimneypiece with reeded pilasters and relief of pair of cornucopias.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Good basement area railings with gates, flambeau type heads and urn finials; railings of a different design with halberd-like finials to south return to Sutton Street.

HISTORY: Building lease of No.10 dated 25th December 1792, Nos 8-11 were unfinished on 7th April 1796, Nos 12-14 were only roofed when leased in 1793.
The north-western termination of Baldwin's ambitious design for the development of the Bathwick Estate, this terrace forms part of one of the most impressive of all Neoclassical urban set-pieces in Britain.

Jane Austen lived at No.4 with her sister Cassandra and her parents from 1801-1804. The plaque on No.4 states that she lived here until 1805; however, it is understood that her family moved to No.3 Green Park Buildings East towards the end of 1804. The City of Bath played a prominent role in Austen’s writing and most notably is used as the setting for large parts of the novels Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Some of the locations mentioned in her work still exist.

SOURCES: Walter Ison, 'The Georgian Buildings of Bath' (2nd ed. 1980), 167-68.

Listing NGR: ST7560965298

This listing was enhanced in 2017 to mark the bicentenary of Jane Austen's death.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17526169

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire: York and the East Riding (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)