1 And 2, Union Street

1 and 2 Union Street are shops with accommodation above, built in 1885 by Major Charles Davis. The building is made of limestone ashlar with a Welsh slate roof and features a large corner block with ornate classical details. It stands four storeys high with an attic and has a three:one:three window arrangement, with three bays on either side of a single bay canted corner. The late 20th-century shopfront includes plate glass and a corner entrance, framed by original banded stone pilasters and a frieze. Each front has three windows, with one on the inset curved corner. Giant Corinthian pilasters flank each front above the ground floor. The first-floor windows have eared architraves, with the center window on each front featuring a scrolled segmental pediment and a carved tympanum. A sill course on the second floor has carved heads in roundels as keys to the windows. Large carved laurel leaf swags hang from rings and lion's heads below the second floor, with floral designs at the center and corners. All windows, including those in the dormers, are plain plate glass sashes. The building has a heavy modillion bracket cornice and baluster panels on the parapet beneath the dormers, which are set in a mansard roof with three:one:three dormers featuring alternate triangular and segmental pediments, along with ashlar stacks with pots. The interior has not been inspected. This building, designed in Davis's eclectic and exuberant classical style, represents the commercial confidence of High Victorian Bath. It was originally built for SF Andrews, a provision merchant, whose initials remain on the corner. Union Street was first proposed as part of the improvements to the city center following the Bath Improvement Act of 1789, aimed at enhancing communication between the Pump Room and Baths and the Upper Town, but it was not constructed until 1806.