North Parade House

North Parade House, 12A North Parade

A house of 1740, designed by John Wood the Elder and altered in the late 19th century. Built of limestone ashlar with a Welsh slate roof.

The building is a square block of four by four windows with no rear walls, requiring a top-lit stair hall positioned in the corner away from the street. It rises three storeys with four windows each to North Parade and Duke Street, with the three street-facing windows set forward to form an end piece to the terraces. A platband runs at first floor level, and the corner is indented as with No.7.

The ground floor features wrought iron area railings (replacing original stone balustrades), with a doorway in the fourth bay from the left. This doorway, paired with No.12, contains a six-panel door with a radiating fanlight beneath a broken pediment head on console brackets, representing a probable late 18th-century alteration. Windows throughout are plain sashes in chamfered reveals, including the basement level. First and second floor windows are sashes with one-over-one plate glass panes, set in architraves with chamfered reveals and dropped sills. The roofline is defined by a dentil cornice and parapet, with a mansard roof topped by three flat-topped dormers facing either way. Ashlar chimney stacks with pots complete the composition.

The interior contains a basement with vaults that lead under the road to the Parade Gardens. The ground floor comprises an east-west hall, part-panelled with an arch, and a north-south hall with a Regency cornice, timber dado and torus skirting. The south-west staircase is original and top-lit, featuring a wide well with cut strings, three Doric colonnette-on-vase banisters per tread, uncarved moulded tread ends, dado, and a newel of matching but larger profile. The stairs continue to the basement and sub-basement with close strings. A small closet is situated off the central stairs.

The north-east ground floor room has three windows with box shutters, an enriched modillion plaster cornice, high Regency skirting, six raised and fielded panel doors opening to both halls, and an original cupboard with a six-panel door to the left of the chimney breast on the east wall. The south-east room contains two windows with box shutters, original raised and fielded panelling two panels high with a dado rail, six-panel raised and fielded doors, and a late 18th-century enriched architrave fireplace.

On the first floor, the north room displays a Regency soffit cornice, four windows with raised and fielded shutters, a north-south ceiling beam in the middle, two six-panel raised and fielded doors, and modern oak panelling with a modern Tudor-arched fireplace at the east end. The south-east room features a big original timber cornice, original panelling, an original enriched architrave fireplace with two panels above it, two windows with raised and fielded box shutters, and a six-panel raised and fielded door to the hall. A small closet is situated south-west of the central stairs.

The second floor north room retains remains of original panelling and timber cornice on the north and south walls, with two windows and raised and fielded box shutters. The north-west room, occupying one bay, has original panelling on north, west and south walls and a four-panel door to the north-east room. The north-east room is lined with raised and fielded panelling and has an original architrave fireplace. The south-east room is fully panelled with two windows on the east wall and an architrave fireplace.

The third floor staircase has a close string. The north-east room contains two doors; the north-west room has one door; the north-centre room has one door and a fireplace matching the south-east room. The south-east room contains two doors with cyma reversa single fascia architraves, a small fireplace with cyma architrave, and a south-west bathroom.

Part of the ground floor was converted into a chapel by the Bath & Wells Mission at some point, during which much of the mouldings were lost. The house was later used as council offices and was converted for use as flats in the late 20th century.

The house forms part of John Wood's scheme for the Abbey Orchard, 1739–1748, with North Parade constituting the northern quarter of an early Georgian quadrangle dating from 1739.