Details
GAY STREET
(East side)
No.41
12/06/50
GV I
End of terrace house. 1734. By John Wood the Elder.
MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, double pitched slate mansard roof with dormers to the front and moulded stacks to the right return.
PLAN: Double depth plan, with open stair at centre of north side of house; curved angle forms one end of apsidal room placed on diagonal of first floor plan.
EXTERIOR: Three storeys with attic and basement. Eight-window range (two windows facing Gay Street). Main feature wide canted corner to right with elaborate full height semicircular bow. Coped parapet, modillion cornice, first floor sill band and ground floor platband follow contours of bow and return to right, moulded architraves to Gay Street facade and second floor of right return, cornices to first floor windows, three/six-pane sashes to second floor front (three/three-pane sashes to right return and between stacks to attic), six/six-pane sashes to rest (except nine/nine-pane sashes to centre of first and ground floors of bow), all with horns. Doorcase to left has engaged Ionic columns supporting entablature and framing arched opening with satyr mask keystone to moulded archivolt and six-panel door below plain fanlight. Canted corner has gadrooned urns with finials to lids, above quoins and centre of bow, three windows to second floor, second floor cornice. Venetian window to first floor has radial glazing bars to central sash, each light flanked by paired Ionic columns with separate rusticated blocks, rusticated voussoirs,. Keystones of side windows die into impost cornice, blind balustraded aprons with moulded sills rise from ground floor platband, similar aprons to ground floor. Right return has blind windows to left hand range, first floor right and ground floor right-of-centre.
INTERIOR: Not inspected but noted as being amongst finest in Bath. First floor drawing room has apsed ends, particularly fine plasterwork and good marble fireplace. The most unusual room is the principal first floor room, with apsidal ends and engaged Corinthian columns at each corner (illus. in Ison, p.209): the room runs diagonally from the corner towards the staircase in a highly unorthodox manner. The walls to this room are panelled, with fields above the dado; the north-east door is set within a Corinthian aedicular surround, and the Venetian window overlooking Queen Square has fully moulded pilasters and entablature to its inner face; modillion cornice above. The unusual powder closet, with its Delft tile-lined closet with a scallop headed niche above, retains its marble basin and surround. Mowbray Green¿s lithograph of the north side of Queen¿s Square shows No. 41 with narrower windows with two-panes and centre with three (1810). Investigation by Bath Council 1981 concludes that the original sashes would have had four/two panes and four/three centre. Ground floor `pepperpot¿ shutters.
HISTORY: This design shows a clear setting aside of Palladian uniformity, and the adoption of a more Baroque, Gibbsian treatment for this prominent corner site. Originally the house formed the southern end of the upper section of Barton Street. There is no evidence for the long held claim that this was John Wood the Younger's house (see bronze plaque). According to Ison it was built for Richard Marchant, a wealthy Quaker, who paid rates on the house from 1736 to 1756. Its opulent singularity and prominence make it one of the best-known houses of its period in Bath. The building lease is dated 14 October 1734.
SOURCES: (Ison W: The Georgian Buildings of Bath (1980): 120, 208, 216 & 228). Mowbray Green, `The Eighteenth Century Architecture of Bath (1904), 65,140-143)
Listing NGR: ST7483065058
