Description

HOT BATH STREET
656-1/0/0 (East side)

Old Royal Baths
12/06/50

GV II*

Hot thermal baths. 1775-1778, by John Wood the Younger, restored 1925-27 by Alfred Taylor.
MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, lead roof.
PLAN: Originally square building with inset splayed corners, and open gateways each side of main west portico, later modified, with additions right and left enclosing approach paths, to left, facing Colonnades (qv) outer wall to slight ogee curve on plan. Open central octagonal bath surrounded by series of dressing rooms.
EXTERIOR: Single storey with small attic spaces, with twelve-pane sash windows in plain reveals. To west tetrastyle unfluted Doric portico with pediment, flanked by two sashes each side, and over panelled door, at each end inset splay with sash. To left, set back slightly, former gateway or doorway filled with sixteen-pane sash in moulded architrave taken right down to paving, fronted by free-standing Doric columns (bases almost absorbed by paving), and returned to curved flank wall, which stops to pair of panelled deep piers with straight lintel, to heavy triple key. To left building attached to No.8 Bath Street (qv). To right, returning to Beau Street, splay as other side, then blank panel, former door, in moulded architrave, and with cornice hood on consoles to pilasters. Return wall has eight small lights, set high, with door in cheeks and with hood on consoles. Main building has full entablature, with blocking course to lead coping, and roof rises to central stone balustrade, in three panels to each front, with dies. Entablature continues to range to left, also has long sunk panel in curved wall.
INTERIOR: Not inspected; originally with a symmetrical floorplan, much altered in 1920s.
HISTORY: John Wood's own description of layout quoted in Ison (op cit), Was not exactly as carried out. Formerly known as The Hot Bath, this is the city's only civic building by the younger Wood (the Assembly Rooms being a private subscription undertaking); he was paid 100 guineas for his work here (payment recorded in Council Minutes of 24th June 1778). The baths are currently undergoing a major programme of restoration (Donald Insall Associates, architects) as part of a campaign to bring back thermal bathing to the city, with Nicholas Grimshaw as architect of the overall scheme.
SOURCES: [See (Ison W: The Georgian Buildings of Bath: London: 1948-: 55; PL 13A/14A; Green M: The Eighteenth Century Architecture of Bath: Bath: 1904-: 181 and pl. cxii; RCHME Report in NMR, Swindon ref. 82855)].

Listing NGR: ST7496664667

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17532730

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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