Description

GAY STREET
(East side)

No.32
(Formerly Listed as: GAY STREET Nos.
31-40 (Consec))
12/06/50

GV II

House, now shop with accommodation over. c1735-1740 with early and late C19 alterations. By John Wood the Elder.
MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, slate mansard roof with dormers and moulded stack to right hand party wall.
PLAN: Double depth plan.
EXTERIOR: Three-storeys with attic and basement. Three-window range, stepped slightly forward with returned coped parapet and cornice level with that of No. 33, and plate glass windows to upper floors, those to first floor with splayed reveals and lowered sills. To left of ground floor set back six-panel door with cobweb overlight. Projecting shop to right, early C19 altered in 1876 by C. Wibley, Builder flanked by panelled pilasters and fluted consoles to cornice, has six-plate glass panes and moulded sill to shop window, those to centre have segmental heads, those to sides have curved glass. Two flat-topped dormers, left one paired, all with plain sashes. Rear elevation not seen.
INTERIOR: Inspected by Bath Council 1984. Original timber stairs with Doric newels. Very wide window to rear, now casement.
HISTORY: Gay Street is named after Robert Gay, a surgeon of Hatton Garden and landowner of this area. Leases were granted a few months after the death of John Wood the Elder, in May 1754. The road forms a steeply rising link between Wood¿s two principal urban set-pieces. The southern part (now comprising Nos. 31-41 Gay Street) were originally known as Barton Street, and predated the remainder of the street by some twenty years. No. 32 is a part of an irregular terrace of three houses returned from George Street and developed in conjunction with Nos. 2-12 George Street (qv). The ground lease for the whole plot was taken by John Wood the Elder on 6th August 1733; the building leases were granted from 1734 on, and the Gay Street houses were inhabited and rated by 1740. This house looks as if it was probably one of the last built. This is the least cohesive and most altered stretch of Gay Street: hence its lower grade than the other sections.
SOURCES: (Mowbray Green, `The Eighteenth Century Architecture of Bath (1904), 140-143; Ison W: The Georgian Buildings of Bath: Bath: 1980: 130, 228; Finch G: Shopfront Record, Bath City Council: 1992).

Listing NGR: ST7481765113

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26674662

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.

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