Loggia

A loggia with projecting bow, attached to the rear of Sydney House. This is a partial reconstruction of a late Georgian feature, rebuilt by the Bath City Engineer in 1938.

The structure is constructed from limestone ashlar with a flat roof, probably covered in lead. It is a single storey, bow-fronted Ionic colonnade of four columns with an entablature. The columns stand on paired plinths. The blocks to either side have plinths and are flanked by Ionic pilasters. Above runs a low parapet with a dentil cornice and frieze spanning the front and the returns to either side.

The interior contains a circular roofed space. The rear wall has a central doorway with a panelled door set in an opening with a moulded architrave and cornice on consoles.

This loggia replaces a more complex, double curved structure originally surmounted by statues and forming an exedra-like terminal to the main axis of Sydney Gardens. The original was built by Thomas Baldwin around 1795 as part of the pleasure grounds established between 1792 and 1794. It was reconfigured in 1836 when Sydney House was built in 1835–6, probably by John Pinch the Younger. The present structure, though reduced in form from the original, incorporates some of the earlier fabric and was rebuilt in 1938.

Sydney Gardens themselves were opened on 11 May 1795 as Sydney Gardens Vauxhall, becoming a popular place of entertainment with public breakfasts, promenades and galas. The main building was the Sydney Tavern, later the Holburne of Menstrie Museum. In 1799, a section of the Kennet and Avon Canal was cut through the gardens with decorative bridges and tunnels. From around 1839, the Great Western Railway was constructed through the gardens. In 1908, the site was purchased by Bath City Council and opened to the public as a municipal park in 1913. The gardens remain in use as a public park.