2 North Parade Passage, Bath, Bath and North East Somerset

Summary

A town house dating back to 1718, but possibly of earlier origins, altered in 1727 for Ralph Allen and attributed to John Wood the Elder, further altered in the late C18 and C19, and restored in 1986, when a new shop front was inserted.

Description

MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, roof not visible to front, but rear slope pantile. Large ashlar stack to the right heightened in brick with pots.

PLAN: it has a double-depth plan, internally split into two levels.

EXTERIOR: the three bay front elevation facing North Parade Passage has a basement (under the Acorn Restaurant) , a ground floor, a first and second floor, and an attic floor, with further accommodation in the roof above it, which is hidden behind the parapet. Architecturally this elevation forms a unit with 1 North Parade Passage (Grade II), together forming a five bay elevation. 2 North Parade Passage has a rusticated giant pilaster to the right, a first floor plat-band, a cornice above the second floor and a parapet. The ground floor has a plain recessed entrance with panelled door with the late 1980s pastiche shop front to its right. The first and second floors have three sash windows with nine over nine panes, and dropped sills. The sash windows to the attic floor have six over six panes.

The three-bay wide N rear elevation, flanking the adjacent elevation of the Ralph Allen Town House (Grade I), has four storeys, including a basement (under the Acorn restaurant). It has a rusticated ground floor with three plate glass sash windows with dropped keystone heads. The two floors above both have three sash windows (some are later replacements) with nine over nine panes and dropped sills. Those to the second floor have decorative architrave surrounds, floating cornices, and the central one has a pediment. The second floor is marked by garland swags under each sash window, which have plain surrounds. The elevation has a deep Classical style cornice that wraps around the E corner, but terminates before reaching the W corner. This suggests that the latter may have been attached to the corner of the adjacent elevation of the Ralph Allen Town House, as also strongly indicated by the scarred stonework to the corner of the latter. This is also indicated on historic OS maps.

INTERIOR: the restaurant, accessed via North Parade Passage, contains the shop to the front which has a large chamfered ceiling beam, a room to the rear with fielded panelling and a late C20 matching fireplace (the original was hidden behind modern inserted panelling and its C19 grate is stored in one of the food storage vaults of the Acorn Restaurant). From this room, stairs in the corner, with stick balusters and swept rail, lead to the basement used for further seating, with toilets and kitchen.

The living accommodation above the shop, entered via the door to its left, is now in use as a short-term holiday let. It contains C18 stairs with stick balusters, turned at the corners, and a swept handrail. The room to the front at first floor level has early C18 fielded panelling to ceiling height, with single rectangular panels above and below the dado rail, and incorporating a fireplace with marble surround and shutters and seats to the windows. The owner has reported that the restoration of the window shutters in 2012 revealed that the building was re-fronted with stone ashlar.

The room directly above contains re-used C17 panelling to ceiling height (principally oak with some pine), brought here from elsewhere, possibly from within the house. It contains an integrated C18 fireplace with cast iron grate.

The kitchen to the rear at mezzanine level, contains a large, plain fireplace containing a C19 cast iron range by JA Bladwell & Co from Bath. The bedroom above the kitchen has an C18 fireplace with built-in grate. From the landing outside it, part of the rear roof over 1 North Parade Passage is accessible (now used for storage). The roof timbers have been mostly replaced in the C20. Part of the walls retain lime plaster.

The bedroom to the front on the attic floor, contains a fireplace with stone ashlar surround containing a late C19 grate. The bathroom and toilets on this floor extend over the attached 1 North Parade Passage.

The roof to the front (hidden behind the parapet) is in use as a further bedroom, and has partially exposed roof timbers (claimed to have been re-used).

History

2 North Parade Passage formed part of Ralph Allen's town house in Bath. It included the current 1 North Parade Passage (Grade II-listed), with which it forms an architectural entity, and what is now called the Ralph Allen Town House (Grade I-listed), accessed via 7 York Street. North Parade Passage was formerly known as Lilliput Alley.

A building lease for a plot of land occupied by the current 1 and 2 North Parade Passage (John Hall to Thomas Cotterell), dates back to 11 January 1620 (Holland, 2007). In 1718 the Countess of Kingston granted a lease of the Post House on Lilliput Alley, comprising the current 1 and 2 North Parade Passage. Ralph Allen was a subtenant from 1718, but in 1727 the lease was assigned to him.

Ralph Allen (1693-1764) came to Bath in c1710-12, where between 1719 and 1748 he served as its Post Master, running his business from the Post House. With the wealth gained from the successful postal reforms he introduced, he acquired land around Bath and established the famous Bath stone quarries. He frequently commissioned the architect John Wood the Elder (1704-1754).

In 1727 Ralph Allen commissioned John Wood the Elder to alter his newly acquired house. In 1742, Wood states in 'An Essay towards a Description of the City of Bath', that 'Whilst Mr Allen was making the Addition to the North Part of his House in Lilliput Alley, he new fronted and raised the old Building a full Story higher; it consists of a Basement Story sustaining a double Story under the Crowning; and this is surmounted by an Attick, which created a Sixth Rate House, and a sample for the greatest Magnificence that was ever proposed by me for our City Houses'.

There is debate amongst historians as to which part(s) of Ralph Allen's house this refers to, some claiming that it entirely refers to the building comprising 1 and 2 North Parade Passage (Holland, 2007) rather than what is now called the Ralph Allen Town House, widely attributed to Wood (Mowl and Earnshaw, 1988).

It is uncertain how 1 and 2 North Parade Passage and the Ralph Allen Town House historically related to each other in the early C18, and how the building was used by Ralph Allen at that time. It has been suggested that Ralph Allen used his house as 'a prestige project, a business base as well as a home' , designed to be a showcase for a new fashion in architecture (Mowl & Earnshaw) .

A pen and ink drawing of Ralph Allen's town house dated by Christies as C18 (sold at auction by them in 2011), and a very similar later view of 1855 by the artist Henry Venn Lansdown, shows it as a large U-shaped mansion surrounding a forecourt, with a central block with projecting bay (the current Ralph Allen Town House) and full height wings to either side (that to the S being the rear elevation of the current 2 North Parade Passage). The accuracy of these views has been questioned. Holland (2007) claims that the N wing on the opposite side was never built: she notes that the land on which it supposedly stood had been granted to Jelly and Fisher for development in 1762. Current stonework at the S corner of the Ralph Allen Town House and to the rear elevation of 2 North Parade Passage does suggest both these buildings were linked at some stage.

Ralph Allen continued to own the building on Lilliput Alley until his death in 1764. By 1766 it was occupied by the sculptor Prince Hoare (1711-1769) and between 1785 and 1790 by the silhouettist Jacob Sponberg.

As suggested by Cotterell's map of Bath of 1852, Ralph Allen's town house had by then been subdivided into three properties: 1 and 2 North Parade Passage and what is now called the Ralph Allen Town House. The three properties are also shown on the 1:500 Ordnance Survey Town Map for Bath published in 1886. There are a number of C19 and early C20 drawings and photographs of the current Ralph Allen Town House showing (part of) the rear elevation of 2 North Parade Passage.

2 North Parade Passage was extensively restored in 1986. A shop front was inserted into the front elevation, replacing an earlier shop front, in order to create a restaurant occupying the basement and ground floor room. The accommodation above, accessed via a separate entrance left of the restaurant, is now used as a holiday let.

Reasons for Listing

2 North Parade Passage in Bath, a town house dating back to 1718, but possibly of earlier origins, altered in 1727 for Ralph Allen and attributed to John Wood the Elder, further altered in the late C18 and C19, and restored in 1986, when a new shop front was inserted, is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: as a particularly interesting example of an early C18 town house, possibly of earlier origins, displaying particularly high quality architectural detailing and interiors;
* Historic interest: for its strong and nationally important historic association with Ralph Allen and John Wood the Elder;
* Intactness: for its particularly high level of surviving original fabric;
* Group value: for its strong group value with 1 North Parade Passage (Grade II) and the Ralph Allen Town House (Grade I).

External Links

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