Description

ALFRED STREET
(South side)
Nos. 1-7 (Consec)
12/06/50

GV II

Includes: BARTLETT STREET, 1-7 Alfred Buildings.
Symmetrical terrace of seven houses. 1768-1772. With C19 and C20 alterations. By John Wood the Younger.
MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, double pitched hipped slate mansard roof with dormers and double moulded stacks to alternate coped party walls.
PLAN: Double depth plans, with staircases generally to the rear; that to No. 7 in centre of house.
EXTERIOR: Three storeys with attics and basements; each house has a three-window front. Returned coped parapet; slightly returned modillion cornice and frieze returned in a simpler form, returned ground floor platband. The pedimented central house and the pavilions (not pedimented) step slightly forward. Moulded eared architraves to six/six-pane sash windows to the second floor; moulded eared and shouldered architraves, cornices and lowered sills on brackets to nine/nine-pane sash windows to the first floor; six/six-pane sashes to the ground floor; Tuscan door cases with pilasters and pediments over set back six-panel doors. No.1 to the left has horns to the windows, splayed reveals and balconettes to the first floor and a five-panel door to the left. The three-window left return in Lansdown Road has blind windows except for a six/six-pane sash to the first floor right. No.2 has splayed reveals to the first and ground floors; trellised balconettes to the first floor; to the right is a six-panel door glazed to top with a grille over a small circular window to the right. No.3 has plate glass sash windows in splayed reveals, a five-panel door to the left glazed to the top with a small rectangular window to the left. No.4 to the centre has two three/three-pane sash windows to a C19 attic storey behind the pediment; splayed reveals to the second and first floors and nine/six-pane sash windows to the first floor. The ground floor has three semicircular arched recesses with plain keystones dying into the platband; radial glazing bars to two semicircular arched windows to the left; a large fanlight with tear shaped panes flanking a circular central pane over a key pattern lintel and double doors with hand-and-wreath knockers in circular central panels. No.5 has six/six-pane sashes without horns nine/nine panes to the first floor; splayed reveals to the first and ground floors; and a small blocked window to the right of a six-panel door glazed to the top. No.6 has plate glass sash windows; splayed reveals to the first and ground floors; a similar door and window to No.5 and a full height canted bay to the rear. No.7, the right hand terminal feature, has wide joints to the ashlar; six/six-pane sash windows without horns; six/nine panes to the first floor with much crown glass; splayed reveals to the first and ground floors and a six-panel door to the right, glazed to the top. The three-window right return in Bartlett Street, has blind windows to the first and ground floor left; six/six-pane sashes with horns; BARTLETT STREET carved into the platband and a small C20 shop to the far right set into the high plinth formed by the sloping site. The staircase is in the centre of the house.
INTERIORS: Not inspected. 1947 photographs in National Monuments Record show the presence in No. 4 of a stone cantilevered stair with an alcove set into the corner of the upper flight, with a baldacchino-like canopy above.
HISTORY: Part of the northward expansion of Bath, associated with the building of the Assembly Rooms across the street. This row of houses at the eastern end of the new street first appeared in the rate books for 1772 and was then known as Alfred's Buildings; in overall compositional terms it owes a debt to the south side of Queen Square. A plaque on No. 2 records the residence in 1783-88 of the portrait painter Sir Thomas Lawrence PRA.
SOURCES: Walter Ison, The Georgian Buildings of Bath (2nd ed. 1980), 156.

Listing NGR: ST7493565270

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26673230

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

• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)