1 To 12, Sydney Place, And Attached Railings And Gates

Twelve symmetrical terrace houses on the west side of Sydney Place, built 1792-1796 and designed by Thomas Baldwin. Originally fourteen houses, but Nos. 13 and 14 have been incorporated into No. 12.

The terrace is constructed in limestone ashlar with rubblestone to the rear, and features double pitched slate mansard roofs with various 19th and 20th century dormers and moulded stacks rising to coped party walls. The houses have double depth plans.

The exterior consists of three-storey houses with attics and basements, each of three bays except No. 12. The central and terminal houses have pediments and step slightly forward. All have doorway surrounds with vermiculated rustication to semicircular arched entrances, set back eight-panel doors with fanlights. A continuous returned coped parapet runs along the roofline, with a cornice, frieze, second and first floor sill bands, and ground floor platband throughout.

Windows above doors (except to the central and terminal houses) have moulded architraves flanked by slender pilasters with foliate capitals supporting dentil cornices. The windows were originally six-pane sashes, now mostly replaced with plate glass, though six-pane sashes remain to first and ground floors. Numerous fronts have lowered sills and splayed reveals. The return elevation to the west has four blind openings per floor, with the rearmost ground floor pair now opened.

Individual architectural details vary across the terrace. No. 1 has a central first floor window flanked by paired pilasters and consoles supporting a dentil cornice over a frieze with double looped garlands and paterae. Nos. 2 and 3 have doors to the right with moulded architraves and cornices above the windows. No. 4 has balconettes to upper windows and a plaque recording Jane Austen's residence here from 1801-1805. No. 5 has balconettes to second, first and ground floor windows. No. 6 has a simple fanlight with radial glazing bars. Nos. 7 and 8 sit under a central pediment, with paired doors with rusticated ashlar surrounds and paired windows to the centre of the first floor under a shared cornice and ornamental frieze; No. 7 has heavy cast iron balconettes to the first floor. No. 9 has chamfered arrises, segmental plan balconettes to the first floor, and a Coade stone surround to the door. Nos. 10 and 11 have radial glazing bars to their fanlights. No. 11 has a delicate cobweb fanlight with lead ornaments. No. 12 has balconettes to the second floor and centre of the first floor with a cobweb fanlight.

The return elevation to Sutton Street to the south has four blind windows per floor, with the left-hand ground floor pair opened up, together with plat bands at each floor level and a sill band at first floor level.

The interiors were not inspected for this listing, but 1946 photographs in the National Monuments Record document an inner door to the hall with fanlight and reeded architrave, reeded pilasters carrying an arch over the foot of the stairs, a shallow arch between reception rooms with entwined husk decoration, and a chimneypiece with reeded pilasters and a relief of a pair of cornucopias.

The subsidiary features include good basement area railings with gates, flambeau type heads and urn finials, and railings of a different design with halberd-like finials to the south return to Sutton Street.

A building lease of No. 10 is dated 25 December 1792. Nos. 8-11 were unfinished on 7 April 1796, whilst Nos. 12-14 were only roofed when leased in 1793. This terrace forms the north-western termination of Baldwin's ambitious design for the development of the Bathwick Estate and represents part of one of the most impressive Neoclassical urban set-pieces in Britain.

Jane Austen lived at No. 4 with her sister Cassandra and her parents from 1801-1804, though a plaque on the house states 1801-1805. It is understood that her family moved to No. 3 Green Park Buildings East towards the end of 1804. Bath played a prominent role in Austen's writing and is used as the setting for large parts of the novels Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, with some locations mentioned in her work still surviving.