Nos 45 And 45A Forefield House

A large house, dating from the early 19th century. It is constructed of limestone ashlar with a slate roof. The house has a wide frontage and a garden front, built across a sloping site with a lower ground floor to the rear. The main front has two storeys, an attic, and a lower ground floor, with a three-window arrangement. Dormers are present in the mansard roof, featuring four-pane sashes within moulded architraves. The main floor has a plain sash window with cast iron flower guards and a central eight-panel door within a segmental arch, topped with a transom light, all set in deep reveals. The lower ground floor houses two lean-to glazed lights on the left side. The ground floor is channelled and features a deep mid band, four-panelled pilasters inset from the ends at the first floor, a cornice, a blocking course, and a parapet. Coped gables have deep ashlar stacks. To the left, there is a single-storey wing with a six-pane arched sash window featuring swagged radial bars, with a raised blocking above the window. To the left of this wing is a steep flight of external steps leading to the rear of the house. To the right is a similar single bay but faced with a wide hipped conservatory. The rear elevation is ashlar, with two four-pane dormers above plain sashes, including an arched centre light to the staircase at two levels; a lower arched light opens onto a landing with railings. There are two platbands, a cornice, a blocking course, and a parapet. A two-storey, single bay extension is at the north end. The interior, recorded by the Bath Preservation Trust in the 1990s, has doors, panelling, and cupboards in the downstairs rooms featuring a Greek key motif. The front door also has this motif, including an early corkscrew security chain device, though the chain itself is no longer in situ, with a complete version surviving in an outhouse below the garage, which was formerly a stable or coach house. The staircase is Victorian on the upper floor and Georgian on the lower floor. The house is one of the grander buildings in a long, mixed terrace.