Description

HIGH STREET
656-1/0/0 (East side)

Guildhall (Formerly Listed as: Guildhall)
12/06/50

GV I

Town Hall, with Municipal Offices, Council Chamber, Mayor's Parlour etc. Originally Guildhall (post 1778), and then Guildhall with Technical Schools to left and Municipal Offices to right (post 1893). 1775-1778, 1893-1897. By Thomas Baldwin (1775), and John McKean Brydon (1893), sculpture by GA Lawson.
MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar to all elevations, with much carving and rustication. Roofs almost wholly hidden from street, but small areas of Welsh slate can be seen together with lead covered domes.
PLAN: Rectangular block of 1775-1778 with wings of 1893-1895 running full length of east side of High Street with return on south into Orange Grove to meet the Old Police Station (qv); the return on Bridge Street is the Victoria Art Gallery of 1898-1901 (qv). Rear (east) of first floor occupied by the banqueting hall: in centre front, behind the portico, is the common council room; grand staircase in south-west corner, service stair on north side.
EXTERIOR: Old Guildhall: Facade of Palladian form with rusticated basement/ground storey, and piano nobile with giant Ionic order rising through attic to central pediment. Two storeys and attics, five-bays, one:two:one. Centre three are set forward on ground storey and carry giant order. Central entrance up steps with double panelled doors and fanlight. This and flanking windows have arched heads, eight/eight sashes. Fine contemporary wrought iron railings with fleur-de-lys heads and vases on main stanchions carrying four fine lanterns, basement windows are twelve/eight late C18 type sashes. Central first floor windows have architraves and cornice heads, flanking ones are arched recesses and have pedimented heads on console brackets, Vitruvian scroll at impost level. Windows are twelve/twelve sashes with balustraded aprons. Attic windows only in centre, architraves, eight/four sashes. Full entablature, pediment contains swagged City arms, vases and lead statue of Justice crown pediment. Swagged panel in flanking attic bays, balustrade panels in parapet above. Roof not visible except saucer dome added by Brydon in 1893, ashlar stacks with weathering. Short returns with long and short quoins, then masked by later wings. Rear elevation of old Guildhall. Fine design, and as designed except for addition of external double glazing to first floor windows. Two storeys and attic, seven-bays, two:three:two, with outer bays set forward and carrying pediments. Rusticated ground storey with seven recessed twelve/twelve sashes with dropped keystone heads. Wrought iron railings to area, five twelve/eight sashes to basement. First floor has twelve/twelve sashes with external cross framed double glazing. Three central bays are framed by Composite pilasters with pediment over false central window which fronts fireplace. Balustraded aprons to windows, moulded string course above. Attic windows, which give clerestory lighting to Banqueting Room, are oval lights in rectangular panels, central bay has panel with carved festoons. Balustraded parapet between pediments, crowned by four vases and central Roman altar, is a chimney. North wing (Technical Schools) and South wing (Municipal Offices). Matching extensions on either side of Baldwin original, except that south wing has additional four-bays fronting Orange Grove, see below, while north wing was later (1898) extended along Bridge Street as Public Library and Victoria Art Gallery (qv). Wings continue main horizontals and many of design features of Baldwin front, but introduce heavier more Baroque finish. Whole design now one:three:one:four:five:four:one:three:one:three:one from north to south (excluding Victoria Art Gallery), twenty-six-bays, of which five are Baldwin and rest Brydon. Three storeys, attics, not all expressed, and basements. Single bays on either side set forward, and two are capped by belvederes, while first and second three's curved to street corners and carry giant Corinthian order. Rusticated ground storey, with arched windows six/nine sashes. Towers have heavy Baroque doorway with blocked Tuscan half column surround, panelled double doors. Stone balustrade to areas, seven four/over eight sashes in segmental heads to either wing. Bay nine larger arched entry to Guildhall Market (qv) with handsome wrought iron gates. First floor has four/four sashes, those flanking Baldwin building have segmental pediments, those in towers match Baldwin ones with pediments on console brackets. Attic windows only to curved sections again matching Baldwin windows. Section have band of relief sculpture between first and second floor windows. This is by G. A. Lawson. At north end these are symbolic figures representing Sciences, Arts and various branches of Learning for the Technical Schools, and at south end they symbolise aspects of legal system and of administration of the City of Bath. Balustraded parapets. Towers are capped by open two stage Neo-Baroque belvederes, square first stage with rusticated arched openings framed by blocked Ionic half columns and supported by consoles. Second stage octagonal with round openings, crowned by lead dome and vase. Final five-bays of south wing fronting Orange Grove form balanced one:three:one composition with recessed centre, features all as before. Section if considered separately has design and detail similarities to Old Prison (qv) in Grove Street. This may be fortuitous, or may be a reference by Brydon to Thomas Warr Atwood its designer who as City Architect died before he was able to build his own design for Guildhall thus giving his 25-year old assistant Baldwin his opportunity. End and rear elevations of 1893 wings, all ashlar faced. Three storeys throughout, all sash windows, variously arranged. Sides flanking Baldwin building are very plain with simple reveals to all windows. Plain parapet, roofs not visible. Further small domed cupola, two louvered ventilators. Ground floor of north wing obscured by market building.
INTERIORS: Of considerable splendour and quality. In Baldwin building, entrance vestibule, staircase, old Council Room and Banqueting Room are all of high quality finish, with good joinery, plasterwork, ironwork (staircase balustrade), and fireplaces. Longer description will be found in Ison p.86, also contains contemporary description. Banqueting Room with fluted Corinthian order around walls, and three particularly fine crystal chandeliers, `without question the finest interior in Bath, and a masterpiece of late eighteenth-century decoration' (Ison), very fully described and telling comparison made with John Wood the Younger's finest interiors in Assembly Rooms. Attic included offices for various Council officials such as the Clerk and the Surveyor. Interiors of Municipal Buildings of 1893 include excellent upper stone vaulted corridor leading to Committee Rooms, and to Mayor's Parlour (in the Neo-Georgian taste), and Council Chamber, not seen on this occasion. Interiors of north wing are utilitarian as befits a Technical School. Passageway to Market also stone vaulted on small Tuscan columns, with scrolled panel surrounds and encaustic tiles to the walls.
HISTORY: An outstanding civic ensemble, combining one of the best mid Georgian town halls with an outstanding late Victorian town hall addition, conceived on an imperial scale and showing Bath¿s prosperity and confidence at the end of the C19. As the plaque on the south side of Brydon's extension states, `These municipal buildings were rendered necessary by the large increase of public business since the erection of the central building'. The story of Baldwin designing the Guildhall when working for the City Architect, Thomas Warr Atwood, and then replacing him on the latter's death, is told in Ison and Root. The original appearance of Baldwin's Guildhall with its screen wings is known from Thomas Malton's drawing of 1788, and many subsequent drawings and photographs. The story of the 1891 Competition for the extensions assessed by William Young, the successful design by Brydon (1891), and the alterations (1892) as built due to various criticisms (1893-1897) is told in 'Nineteenth Century Bath, Architects and Architecture' by Neil Jackson, p.242
SOURCES: (Mowbray Green, `The Eighteenth Century Architecture of Bath (1904), 177-179; J. Britton, `Bath and Bristol' in a Series of Views' (1829), 21-22 & illus.; The Building News, 8 Jan. 1892; The Builder, 9 Jan. 1892; `Brydon at Bath', Architectural Review, July-Dec 1905; Walter Ison, `The Georgian Buildings of Bath' (1980), 69-75 etc; Jackson N: Nineteenth Century Bath - Architects and Architecture: Bath: 1991-: 242; Jane Root, `Thomas Baldwin', Bath History V (1994), 80-103 .

Listing NGR: ST7512464861

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Guildhall, Bath at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q5615874

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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