55 and 55a St Mary’s Butts

This early 19th-century house, later converted to commercial use and extended in the mid-19th century, stands on St Mary’s Butts. The upper floors of the west-facing elevation are faced in Bath stone, while the south elevation is stuccoed; the east elevation is a mix of rendering and exposed red brick. The western and central sections have a hipped slate roof, and the later eastern range has a pitched roof with four modern roof lights on its southern slope.

The building occupies a rectangular plot and consists of a main three-story, two-bay range facing St Mary’s Butts, with four bays to the south. A rear range was added to the east, two stories and five bays wide on the south.

The west elevation has an altered interwar shopfront on the ground floor, including a recessed doorway with margin glazing bars, a canted shop window with metal framing and margin glazing, and a more recent glass door. Above the shopfront, the first and second floors feature recessed timber sash windows with six-over-six and three-over-three glazing respectively, flanked by two-storey ionic pilasters topped with a blank frieze. A deep projecting cornice sits above, followed by a parapet fronting the hipped roof. The upper floors of the stuccoed south elevation mirror the west elevation’s window arrangement and ionic pilasters, while the ground floor is blank. Further east on the south elevation is a window with three-over-three glazing on the ground floor and six-over-six glazing on the first floor. The mid-19th-century rear range has irregular sash windows; six-over-six on the ground floor and three-over-three on the first floor. The south elevation of this range is blank, revealing exposed brickwork in a triangular shape marking the former location of a demolished extension. A small, single-storey flat-roofed brick extension with a modern door is attached to its east elevation.

The interior was not inspected.