1 And 2, Union Street

UNION STREET 656-1/40/1712 (West side) Nos.1 AND 2 05/08/75

GV II

Shops with accommodation over. 1885. By Major Charles Davis. MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar with Welsh slate roof. PLAN: Large corner block with ornate classical detail. EXTERIOR: Four storeys and attic, three:one:three windows, three bays either side of the single bay canted corner. Late C20 plate glass shopfront and corner entrance, framed by original banded stone pilasters and frieze. Three windows to each front and one to inset curved corner. Each front flanked by giant Corinthian pilasters above ground floor. Eared architraves to windows on first floor, centre window in each front having scrolled segmental pediment with carved tympanum. Second floor sill course, carved heads in roundels as keys to second floor windows. Large carved laurel leaf swags from rings and lion's heads falling below second floor, floral one to centre and to corner. All windows, including dormers, plain plate glass sashes. Heavy modillion bracket cornice, baluster panels to parapet, beneath dormers, mansard roof with three:one:three dormers, with alternate triangular and segmental pediments, ashlar stacks with pots. INTERIOR: Not inspected. HISTORY: Designed in Davis's characteristically eclectic and exuberant classicism, this prominent corner epitomises the commercial confidence of High Victorian Bath. These premises were built for SF Andrews 'Provision Merchant', whose initials survive on the corner. Union Street was first proposed as one of the improvements to the City centre following the Bath Improvement Act of 1789. It was intended to improve communications between the Pump Room and Baths, and the Upper Town, and was to have elevations designed by Thomas Baldwin; but it was not built until 1806.

Listing NGR: ST7500264790