Description

GREAT PULTENEY STREET
(South East side)

Nos.66-77 (Consec) (Formerly Listed as:
GREAT PULTENEY STREET (South side) No.41A.
Nos 42-77 (consec)
12/06/50

GV I

Twelve symmetrical terrace houses. c1789-1795. By Thomas Baldwin, John Eveleigh and other architects .
MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, double pitched slate mansard roofs with paired and triple dormers and moulded stacks to coped party walls.
PLAN: Double depth plans with rear additions.
EXTERIOR: Three storeys with attics and basements, each house has three-window range. Continuous entablature with modillion cornice and moulded architrave, upper-floor sill bands, ground floor plat band, chamfered rustication with radial voussoirs to ground floor, and plinth. Six/six-pane sash windows, set back eight-panel doors to right (to left of No.66), some retaining cobweb fans in overlights. Pedimental terminals are set slightly forward with tall semicircular arched window to centre of ground floor under cornice on consoles. Central range has four pairs of grand order of Corinthian pilasters rising from ground floor cornice. No.66 left terminal, has door and plain overlight to left. Four-window left return in William Street plain, ground floor platband returned, set back door and overlight to left-of-centre has six/six-pane sash window to both floors above; other windows blind. This was William Beckford's first home in Bath after leaving Fonthill in 1822 (qv Lansdown Tower, Lansdown Road; 19 and 20 Lansdown Crescent). No.67 has door to right with cobweb fan in overlight, quarter column in angle with No.66 and full pilaster to right of it. No.68 similar, with plain overlight and two pilasters to right party wall. Nos 69 and 70 similar, with plain overlights and no pilasters. No.69 has C20 sunblind over door. Nos 71 and 72 similar with cobweb fans to overlights. No.73 similar with later leaded cobweb fan. No.74 has original cobweb fan to overlight and paired pilasters to right party wall. No.75 has plain overlight. No.76 has late C19 five-panel bolection moulded door and scrolled overlight and C19 full width stone balcony to first floor. Hannah More lived in this house, 1789-1820 (bronze plaque). No.77, pedimented right terminal, similar to No.66 with central eight-panel door and blocked overlight and blind windows to right of upper floors. Right hand range really part of No.7 Laura Place (qv).
INTERIORS: No.77 was recorded by Bath Preservation Trust in 1992. It has a staircase with three cantilevered stone flights to the first floor, then again to the second. Mahogany butler¿s trays on the landings. There is an enclosed small staircase to the third floor. In the drawing room on the first floor is a large triangular panelled cupboard with a six-panelled door in the angle of the wall, possibly a wig cupboard. It is thought this part of the house may have been a powder room. The ground floor below is also an irregular shape with a similar cupboard, and connecting doors to the front sitting room. In the kitchen the archway originally housed a bread oven. The windows were originally a door with stairs into the garden. A cupboard originally housed a dumb waiter to the ground floor. The scullery has a porcelain sink with fluted decoration, and the lower basement houses several rooms including a wine store and laundry with an old copper which is inset in a stone block with room for a fire beneath. No.66 converted for use by the elderly in eight units in 1971. No. 68, inspected 1992, retains many of its original and Victorian features. No.69 adapted for hotel use in 1978. No.73 became guesthouse in 1958; No.74 became a hotel in 1978. No.75 was sub-divided in 1982; No.76 in 1966.
HISTORY: Great Pulteney Street forms the principal element of the late C18 development of the Bathwick estate east of the River Avon. Laid out on an unusually generous scale, 100ft wide, it is one of the most imposing urban set-pieces of its day in Britain. Robert Adam prepared designs in 1782, but Thomas Baldwin was responsible for the eventual design. Leases were granted from 1788 but progress was delayed as a result of the building crash of the mid-1790s.
SOURCES: (Ison W: The Georgian Buildings of Bath: Bath: 1980-: 165; Bath City Council planning files).

Listing NGR: ST7538365039

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17526330

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

• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)