Bathwick Hill House

Bathwick Hill House is a detached Greek Revival villa dating from around 1825, probably designed by H.E. Goodridge. It is constructed in ashlar with a slate roof.

The building follows a square plan with a broad portico entrance on the north side leading to a symmetrical interior layout with a central transverse staircase. The south front features a recessed centre and faces onto the street. The house is two storeys with a basement, and each front is three bays wide.

The north entrance front centres on a wide three-pane casement set high above a truncated sash with radial fanlight and margin lights, set within a recessed arch with archivolt and impost band. A small inserted casement is positioned to the left. The ground floor features a tetra style portico with composite palmette capitals and plain pilaster responds, topped by a flat entablature. The wide doorway below is carried on bold decorative scroll consoles and contains a pair of three-panel fielded doors with sidelights. Balusters are returned to the front of the main range in quadrants and extended to the left with an opening to a flight of steps; beneath the portico landing is a pair of doors with a small oculus in the main wall to the left. Broad but shallow quoins and central pilasters define the three bays. The ground floor has arched sashes with a thin impost band, and the mid band is carried across the outer bays. Pilasters rise to a deep plain eaves band with a small stone eaves mould featuring paired square brackets over each pilaster. A wide tall chimneystack rises above the centre bay, treated as an attic course on a base with a sunk centre panel and slight moulded capping, with flues on each side. The three remaining sides carry prominent stacks boldly treated as secondary attics with square columns to the sides. The roof is low-pitched and hipped, with a central lantern serving the staircase.

The south front is the principal elevation. The first floor has twelve-pane sashes in moulded architraves set within a recessed square panel, with a central cast iron balustrade featuring three rosettes to free-standing end dies. Set back to the centre, on a stone-balustraded balcony, is a pair of small-pane French doors also with architrave. The ground floor has very deep six/nine-pane sashes with margin lights, the leftmost glazed but blind, with a small moulded impost band returned to the reveals and stopped to flat pilasters. The central bay contains a pair of glazed doors on two stone steps and landing beneath a large square transom light with decorative bars, set back from a pair of fluted columns in antis with palmette capitals, plain responds, and deep plain architrave. A slight plinth, pilasters, frieze and eaves match the entrance side detailing. The right (east) return carries a small two-storey later extension, and the main range has three twelve-pane sashes above a large twelve-pane and an inserted twelve-pane; a basement grille with curved bars sits above two large sixteen-pane sashes. The opposite end has twelve-pane above a large twelve-pane, with basement grilles above sashes. Both returned ends feature broad shallow quoin pilasters, a small plinth, frieze and mould above the ground floor lights, and a small moulded sill band to the first floor, with eaves detail matching the remainder. Broad attic stacks similar to that on the entrance front occupy the centre of each of these fronts.

The interior examined at ground floor level reveals a lobby and broad entrance hall with geometric coloured tile floors. The main stair has painted stone treads with returned nosings and cast iron paired balusters featuring anthemion and rosette motifs to a swept mahogany rail. All doors are original five-panelled, including a curved door to the left opening to the dining room. The central small ante-room to the south contains a shallow segmental vault with delicate plaster enrichment. To the left of the entry is the dining room with inner corners radiused. To the right, the drawing room has radiused corners at the outer end with deep plain niches. Fireplaces in both these rooms are probably late replacements. Shallow plaster cornices may have been modified. On the north side are near-square rooms flanking the entry.

Bathwick Hill House is one of the finest Greek Revival houses in Bath. It was very probably designed by the young Goodridge before he travelled to Italy, after which he designed in a more Italianate manner. The austere masonry, bold forms, and fine decorative detail of the south front in particular clearly reflect the spirit of the Greek Revival and Goodridge's mastery of building in stone.