41, Gay Street

End of terrace house, 1734, designed by John Wood the Elder.

Built in limestone ashlar with a double pitched slate mansard roof featuring dormers to the front and moulded stacks to the right return. The building is three storeys with attic and basement, arranged on a double depth plan with an open stair at the centre of the north side. The principal feature is a wide canted corner to the right, articulated with an elaborate full-height semicircular bow.

The exterior displays eight windows in total, with two facing Gay Street. The coped parapet, modillion cornice, first floor sill band and ground floor platband follow the contours of the bow and return to the right. The Gay Street façade and second floor of the right return have moulded architraves, whilst cornices address the first floor windows. Sash windows vary in glazing: three/six-pane and three/three-pane sashes to the second floor front and right return respectively, with six/six-pane sashes elsewhere, except for nine/nine-pane sashes at the centre of the first and ground floors of the bow. All windows feature horns.

The doorcase to the left is framed by engaged Ionic columns supporting an entablature and arched opening with satyr mask keystone to the moulded archivolt, below which sits a six-panel door and plain fanlight. The canted corner is topped with gadrooned urns with finials above quoins and the centre of the bow. The second floor of the corner features three windows and a cornice. A Venetian window to the first floor displays radial glazing bars to its central sash, with each light flanked by paired Ionic columns with separate rusticated blocks and rusticated voussoirs. Keystones of the side windows die into an impost cornice. Blind balustraded aprons with moulded sills rise from the ground floor platband, with similar aprons to the ground floor. The right return includes blind windows in various positions.

The interior, whilst not formally inspected, is noted as amongst the finest in Bath. The first floor drawing room features apsed ends, particularly fine plasterwork and a good marble fireplace. The principal first floor room is exceptionally unusual, with apsidal ends and engaged Corinthian columns at each corner, running diagonally from the corner towards the staircase in a highly unorthodox manner. Walls to this room are panelled with fields above the dado. The north-east door is set within a Corinthian aedicular surround, and the Venetian window overlooking Queen Square features fully moulded pilasters and entablature to its inner face with a modillion cornice above. An unusual powder closet retains a Delft tile-lined closet with scallop-headed niche above, complete with original marble basin and surround.

Investigation by Bath Council in 1981 concluded that the original sashes would have had four/two panes with a four/three pane centre, as evidenced by Mowbray Green's lithograph of 1810 showing the north side of Queen Square. Ground floor "pepperpot" shutters remain.

The design represents a deliberate departure from Palladian uniformity in favour of a more Baroque, Gibbsian treatment suited to this prominent corner site. Originally the house formed the southern end of the upper section of Barton Street. A bronze plaque claims this was John Wood the Younger's house, but there is no evidence for this assertion. According to Ison, it was built for Richard Marchant, a wealthy Quaker, who paid rates on the house from 1736 to 1756. The building lease is dated 14 October 1734. Its opulent singularity and prominence make it one of the best-known houses of its period in Bath.