Grand Pump Room

Grand Pump Room

A spa pump room built between 1789 and 1799, designed by Thomas Baldwin and completed by John Palmer. The building is constructed of Bath limestone ashlar with a triple pitched hipped slate roof.

The building is rectangular in plan with a single large hall and small flanking rooms. The northern elevation onto Abbey Church Yard was designed by Palmer and modified Baldwin's original scheme. It comprises two storeys and a basement arranged in seven bays, articulated as one:five:one, with the end bays set slightly forward. The centrepiece features four engaged Corinthian columns supporting an entablature and pediment. The pediment contains a wreathed blind bull's eye, and the entablature carries the inscription 'Water is best' in Greek. The upper storey windows in the centre five bays are oval and set in rectangular panels, similar to the Banqueting Room at the Guildhall. The ground floor of the five centre bays has twelve-over-twelve sashes flanking a recessed arched central entrance with twelve-pane French doors and fanlight above; the window joinery is a mid-twentieth-century restoration. Wrought-iron area railings carry four lanterns on standards. The end bays break forward slightly; the west bay receives the end of a previously built colonnade, whilst the east bay contains the principal entrance with coupled Ionic pilasters and pediment. Windows above are set in arched recesses with original twelve-over-twelve sashes and semicircular fanlights. A balustraded apron is present. A lintel band runs continuously with the entablature of the pediment around the building except for small breaks. The entablature and parapet feature blind balusters in panels over the windows.

The west elevation onto Stall Street was designed by Baldwin as conceived and should be understood as part of a more monumental scheme incorporating the North and South Colonnades, which were also designed by Baldwin and date from roughly the same period. The wall is blind but heavily modelled, comprising one of Bath's most elaborate displays of masonry. It has a rusticated and vermiculated basement with four roundels. Above this, the wall is articulated in three bays by eight paired three-quarter attached Corinthian columns. The column bases stand on a broad panelled band-course. Between the columns are three semicircular arched niches with balustraded aprons, each surmounted by pediments on consoles with swagged bands below. The whole is topped by a parapet with cornice and blind baluster panels corresponding to the niches beneath.

The south elevation has undergone remodelling over the years. It comprises three storeys plus a lower storey overlooking the King's Bath. Two window wings project forward on either side, each with six-over-six sashes. The chief feature of the centre is a semicircular glass domed oriel containing the fountain within the pump room. This was added by Major Charles Davis in 1888, but his design has since been replaced with an oriel of more Georgian appearance featuring three sixteen-light windows with stone mullions between. The ashlar wall is otherwise articulated by panels and bands with two twelve-over-twelve sashes in enlarged openings. The second storey has five oval windows in rectangular recesses, as on the north front, with a blind attic above, cornice and parapet continuing around from the other elevations.

The east elevation is blind and largely obscured by the adjoining Concert Room. It features bands, a large arch, cornice and parapet. This front remained wholly obscured until nearby demolitions and the construction of the Concert Room by J.M. Brydon in 1897.

The interior contains a hall measuring eighteen metres by fourteen metres by ten metres high, with apsed ends at each terminus and four small ante-rooms at the corners. A giant Corinthian order of attached fluted columns—half to the sides and quarter to the corners—articulates the space. The long walls are divided into five bays. The north wall has one window per bay with a clerestory window above. The south wall features a window, fireplace, fountain, fireplace, and window in each bay, each with a clerestory window above. White marble fire surrounds in the Neo-Classical taste are present. The fountain alcove on the south side is protected by a bulbous balustrade. It was added by Major Charles Davis in 1888 but has since been reconstructed to a plainer design; the panelled soffit to the arched opening survives from Palmer's original work. The west apse contains a serpentine gallery with a wrought-iron balustrade, whilst the east apse has two panels and an alcove containing Prince Hoare's statue of Beau Nash within the central niche. A musicians' gallery occupies the west end. Pedimented doorways flank the apses. A deep cove separates the entablature with modillion cornice from the flat ceiling above.

The first pump room, built by John Harvey at the behest of Beau Nash in 1706, occupied the same site and provided an elegant public space for taking the Bath waters accompanied by music. It was enlarged in 1751. Substantial Roman remains were uncovered nearby in 1755. Reconstruction of the complex to Baldwin's designs commenced in the mid-1780s. Rebuilding began in 1791 with Baldwin's reconstruction of the northern elevation; a projecting portico had been proposed for this front, and its footings were discovered during excavations in the early 1980s. Remains of a Roman temple precinct were discovered during foundation digging in 1790. The Grand Pump Room was finally opened by the Duchess of York on 28 December 1795. It underwent slight alteration in the nineteenth century, largely reversed in the mid-twentieth century. Its setting was dramatically altered by construction of the adjoining Concert Room and Roman Bath Museum in the late nineteenth century.

As one of the most prominent civic buildings in Georgian Bath, this building was at the heart of fashionable life in the city, visited daily by all regardless of health status, and thus constitutes a key monument to the history of taste, medicine and public architecture. Beyond being an outstanding Georgian municipal building, it forms a key part of Baldwin's scheme of Neoclassical town planning improvements that defined the present-day appearance of Bath's centre. The Roman Baths below are also a scheduled monument.