Gate Piers At South End Of Ralph Allen Drive

RALPH ALLEN DRIVE 656-1/67/1362 Gate piers at south end of Ralph Allen Drive 11/08/72

(Formerly Listed as: RALPH ALLEN DRIVE Lodge and Gate Posts)

GV II

Pair of large gatepiers. c1740, by John Wood the Elder. MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar. A pair of large piers, set each side of the Drive where it joins North Road at the top of the hill, close to Top Lodge [q.v.]. The main rusticated piers approx 1.2m square and 4m high. Moulded bases mainly concealed by later road and pavement surfaces, and wide moulded capping with double blocking course carrying very large horizontally moulded urns. Inner faces of piers have hanging stiles to modelled console heads. One of three similar pairs of remaining gate piers to the Prior Park estate. These, now without gates, have been repositioned so as to straddle road exit: the east one is probably in its original position while west one has been moved: Ralph Allen Drive was formerly a private carriage drive and acquired by Bath City Council in 1921; the road was widened using unemployed labour and re-opened as a public thoroughfare in 1922. A wooden sign high up on the eastern pier still bears the words 'Private road'. This pier also bears the letters LWP, for Lyncombe and Widcombe Parish. The spectacularly large urns were intended to display the quality of Bath stone quarried nearby in Ralph Allen's quarries and its ability to be worked on a massive scale. SOURCES: Maurice Scott, 'Discovering Widcombe and Lyncombe, Bath' (2nd ed. 1993), 72; Gillian Clarke, `Prior Park. A Compleat Landscape¿ (Bath 1987), 40.

Listing NGR: ST7608062671