Nos 1-19 (Consec) Prior Park Buildings

Nineteen units forming a palace-fronted terrace on Prior Park Road, built around 1825 and attributed to John Pinch.

The terrace is constructed in limestone ashlar with slate or concrete tile roofs. It rises three storeys with attics. Each house has two windows per floor. Nos 1-10 have doors positioned to the right, while Nos 11-19 have doors to the left. The windows are sash windows, predominantly twelve-pane, though several lack glazing bars: Nos 2, 4, 11, 13, 14, 18 and 19, the second floor of No. 5, and the ground floor of No. 15. At first floor level, each pair of sashes is topped with decorative iron balcony railing, mainly featuring an intersecting palmette motif, mounted on brackets with grille floors. A continuous sill band runs across the second floor. The doors are fielded six-panel designs beneath deep transom lights.

The ground floor is channelled, with channelled voussoirs framing the doors and windows, all positioned below a platband. Fine Roman lettering inscribed at the right-hand end of No. 1 reads "PRIOR PARK BUILDINGS". First floor windows to the end pavilions and centre unit are set within shallow sunk arched panels, with a blank panel corresponding to the door between Nos 10 and 11 to balance the composition. The lintel, frieze, blocking course and parapet run the full width. A wide centre tympanum contains a large tripartite oval oculus flanked by small sashes and backed by the attic.

The right-hand return features a gable with a sixteen-pane sash and blind windows below, plus a six-panel door with transom light positioned to the right in deep reveals with an incised pilaster surround. A single-storey addition with swept coping leads to a flight of steps to a former door. The left-hand end is rendered and painted, with five windows, and cornice and string courses returned to both ends. The rear elevation is also in ashlar to the eaves, though a parapet rises above No. 19. Various dormers are positioned above sashes, many of these twelve-pane. Small single-storey wings and a full-height flat-roofed wing to No. 19 are also present. Deep ashlar ridge stacks run at party divisions.

Interiors were not systematically inspected during listing, but the Bath Preservation Trust survey recorded details of selected properties. No. 8 has a two-room-per-floor plan with a staircase at the rear. The ground floor front contains a dining room with reeded architraves to doors and windows, a grey and white marble fireplace, and a leaf and trellis plaster cornice. The first floor drawing room features reeded architraves to interconnecting doors and windows, a grey and white marble fireplace with reeded surround, and a scrolled foliate cornice. The rear room on this floor displays similar features. Upper floor bedrooms contain wooden reeded fireplace surrounds, with a cast iron hob grate in the second floor back room, and moulded plaster cornices throughout.

No. 12 has two rooms per floor. Stone stairs rise to the second floor with plain wooden rails, with iron rails at every sixth position, and a turned double baluster newel post at the foot. The ground floor dining room features a guilloche ceiling frieze, moulded door and window architraves, and a six-panel door.

No. 13, dated 1826 and confirmed as by John Pinch the Elder, also has a two-room-per-floor plan. A cantilevered stone staircase with plain wooden rails (iron at every sixth position) and a mahogany handrail serves the floors. The ground floor dining room displays reeded architraves to doors and windows, with a ceiling cornice decorated with grapes and corn, and a wooden surround to a cast iron grate. The first floor drawing room contains a floral trellis cornice, a black and white marble chimneypiece, and reeded architraves to windows and doors, repeated in the rear room. Reeded ceiling cornices, four-panel doors, and cupboards flanking stone fireplaces feature on the upper floors.

Several doors retain their original fanlights with projecting lanterns. A service road runs parallel to the rear of the terrace, with access roads at either end. The entire terrace sits on a raised bank above the road, with a channelled Mill Stream within a stone basin with plain railings.

This is one of the later Georgian terraces of Bath, built as part of the south-eastern expansion of the city. Its raised position commands a fine northerly prospect over what was then undeveloped Widcombe. The channelled stream in front is an unusual and effective compositional device, emphasising the monumental linearity of the terrace.