Details
ABBEY CHURCH YARD
Museum Shop, formerly Concert Room
(Formerly Listed as: Concert Hall)
11/08/72
GV II*
Concert room with offices, now part of the Roman Baths Museum. 1897. By John McKean Brydon.
MATERIALS: Bath limestone ashlar with lead covered dome; the rest of the roof is Westmoreland slate but not visible from the ground.
PLAN: Large, rectangular, top-lit single cell plan with surrounding corridors and Rooms, with single storey projection to east. Built as an eastward continuation to the Grand Pump Room (qv), to which it is connected with a link building to the west.
EXTERIOR: Entrance front to north comprises a rusticated ground floor with central doors within Gibbs surrounds, flanked by six-pane windows. Upper sections comprise a tetra style portico of engaged Corinthian columns, supporting a full entablature with pediment. Outer bays contain arched niches with pedimented heads on consoles, and balustraded aprons. Central bay has Venetian window with Ionic pilasters and balustraded apron. Cross-framed window with rusticated arched head. Swagged band across all three-bays. Pediment with central oculus surrounded by palm fronds and scrollwork, after the manner of James Gibbs. To right of the north-facing elevation is a three-bay single storey link with the Grand Pump Room, fronted by wrought iron railings. six-pane windows in architraves, balustrade above at platband level. Further blind wall with balustraded parapet set back behind, giving first floor linkage between the two. Seven-bay ground floor façade to east, with curving corner, six-pane windows set between engaged Ionic columns, balustrade over. Main east front is a symmetrical seven-bay design, with a central blind arched nice flanked by four/four-pane windows set within moulded surrounds, beneath a balustraded parapet, set behind a balustraded area. The upper storey of the former Concert Room is articulated with three arch-headed windows within moulded surrounds, the central one larger, beneath another balustraded parapet with domed roof above. One and a half-storey pavilion at south-east corner with rusticated ground floor, round window within relieving arch to east and south sides.
South wall of main block forms part of the design for the Roman Great Bath (qv). Large Diocletian (or, more aptly, thermal) window with raised surround on upper storey, pediment with oculus above. West wall largely obscured but has same window treatment as east wall.
INTERIOR: The principal space comprises the former Concert Room, now the entrance and shop for Roman Baths Museum. The design appears to be based on planning and decorative treatment of St Stephen, Walbrook by Sir Christopher Wren. Centrally planned space with large coffered dome with central glazed lantern. Coffering in three tiers and rises above modillion cornice. Below, squinches and soffits of arches have relief stucco work. Apsed ends with half domes, also coffered. Main cornice supported by attached composite columns of exotic marble. Apses are lit by Venetian window at north end, and Diocletian one at south end. North end has small gallery, and south end has triple doorways, centre one with segmental pediment. The principal room amounts to a high quality Late Victorian public room. Surrounding the former Concert Room on north and east sides is a vaulted corridor with porphyry Tuscan columns and paired Tuscan pilasters, with a black and white marble floor.
HISTORY: The design of the Pump Room Extension, intended to form a concert hall, was put out to competition in 1894 and was won by Brydon, with a different, more grandiose, design from the one executed. Brydon had already won the competition for the Bath Guildhall extensions in 1891. After a dispute, the building was not erected until 1897. It forms a notable example of contextual, Late Victorian design which sought to balance Roman and Georgian influences, and thus form a worthy adjunct to the Roman Baths. The Roman Baths beneath are a scheduled monument.
SOURCES: Neil Jackson, N: Nineteenth Century Bath. Architects and Architecture (1991), 250-252.
Sited within the Roman Baths Scheduled area ref: OCN BA 82
Listing NGR: ST7507464739
