Mountnessing And Beechen House

Mountnessing and Beechen House is a former villa that has been converted into two dwellings, built between 1861 and 1862. The building is constructed from limestone ashlar and features a slate roof with modillion cornices on the stacks. It has a double-depth plan and stands two storeys tall with attics and a basement. The symmetrical fronts facing both the entrance and the rear have five windows each.

The exterior includes plate-glass sash windows and a wide, shallow canted bay at the center of the south front. Above the windows, there are balustraded panels and a coped parapet. A modillion cornice runs along the top, with a first-floor sill string course supported by brackets beneath the windows. The ground floor features a platband with keystones around the raised surrounds of the windows, and the building is accented by rusticated quoins and a plinth.

Beechen House occupies the left-hand window range and includes a 20th-century rear wing. Mountnessing comprises a four-window range, including the canted bay windows. The first-floor windows have sliding louvred shutters, while the ground-floor windows are equipped with sun-blind boxes. The entrance is located in the symmetrical three-window right return, featuring similar architectural details to the front. It includes a prostyle Tuscan porch with a balustraded balcony above the cornice, and the coping aligns with the sill string course. The first-floor flanking windows are blind.

The interior features four-panel doors, and the front room has splayed window openings with panelled shutters, an ornamental cornice, and a pink-and-black marble fireplace with a keystone above a wide semicircular arch, likely over a former cast iron arch-plate register grate. Although the interior was not inspected, it has been reported to retain the original staircase, four-panel doors, and some marble fireplaces.

Historically, the house first appears in the Bath Directory for 1862 and was designed in a Palladian Revival style, reflecting a renewed interest in Bath's Georgian architecture. The property was subdivided in 1952.