5, Widcombe Hill

No. 5 Widcombe Hill is a house in a row, dating from the late 17th or early 18th century, around 1700. It was refaced in the late 18th century and has undergone 20th-century alterations. The house is constructed of limestone ashlar with a rubble rear wall, and features a wide-span double Roman tile roof.

The building is two storeys to the front, but three storeys to the rear due to the sloping site. It has three windows to the front, all twelve-pane sash windows, with the first-floor windows recessed and spaced unevenly. A flush six-panel part-glazed door, set within an architrave with a keystone, is positioned off-centre to the right, with the bottom rail following the slope of the hill. A broad platband runs along the first floor. Coped gables have two ashlar stacks to the right, a small cropped stack to the left, and a further square stack to the gable head. To the left is a rubble lean-to, which contains fixed nine-pane lights above plank and glazed garage doors.

The rear elevation retains significantly earlier fabric. The top floor has a four-light recessed ovolo-mould casement with a central king mullion under stopped drip; however, the lights are blocked. This is flanked by broad twelve-pane sashes. The middle floor has a full-width drip course over a five-light casement, with the outer lights blocked, originally formed from two two-light recessed ovolo-mould casements, each now with only one glazed light, joined by an inserted glazed light of almost equal width. To the right is a three-light unmodified casement. The lower ground floor has paired twelve-pane sashes, with remains of an ovolo-mould casement to the left under a drip course, but a four-pane sash to the left. A central 20th-century glazed door in a bolection-mould architrave has a slab hood supported on carved console brackets with cornice moulds. To the right is a broad wing with a lean-to roof and a central panelled door.

The interior is not inspected but is reported to contain a stone staircase. The house is one of the earliest in the area and retains a fine rear elevation with original mullioned windows. The construction of the turnpike road to Bradford and Trowbridge may have resulted in the reversal of street fronts and the later 18th-century refacing of the original rear elevation in fine ashlar. This demonstrates changes in Bath house-building throughout the century, as well as the imposition of Palladian tastes over local vernacular traditions.