No. 1A With Railings

QUEEN SQUARE 656-1/30/2445 (East side) No.1A with railings (Formerly Listed as: QUEEN SQUARE (East side) Nos 1A, 1-4 (consec) & 4A) 12/06/50

GV I

House to north-east corner of Queen Square. 1729-1734. By John Wood the Elder. MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, slate mansard roof hipped to corner with small dormers and moulded stacks to party walls. PLAN: Double depth plan. EXTERIOR: Three storeys with attic and basement, two-window range to Queen Square, symmetrical five-window range to entrance front in Old King Street. Old King Street facade has returned low parapet, modillion cornice and frieze, first floor sill band, ground floor platband and plinth. Horned plate glass sash windows, eared and shouldered architraves to second floor, moulded architraves with cornices to first floor, plain openings to ground floor. Queen Square facade has lowered sills to first floor. Old King Street facade has painted architraves and reveals, splayed reveals to first floor, lowered sills to central windows and to right of first floor, two blind windows to second floor right, and right-of-centre of first and ground floors. Early C19 enclosed porch has returned cornice and blocking course and overlight to six-panel door with inverted corners to upper panels. To right corner lead rainwater downpipe. INTERIOR: Not inspected. Upper floors part-converted for residential use in 1960, later adapted for office use (Bath CC planning file). HISTORY: These houses, east side terrace of Queen Square, were first built of the John Wood development. John Wood leased the site from Robert Gay from 1728 onwards, and granted underleases in 1729-1731 to a range of developers, and the houses are first recorded as occupied in the rate books in 1734. Wood originally intended to level the sloping site, but this was abandoned on the grounds of cost. Queen Square is of exceptional importance as the first large-scale instance of town planning to arrive at Bath. Wood drew on precedents in contemporary London house-building and, through the courageous and skilful pursuit of his vision, created a monumental ensemble on a fresh sloping site some distance to the west of the former city walls. Each side of the square forms a symmetrical composition, but none of the sides are alike. Queen Square forms the earliest, and lowest, element in the sequence of set-pieces by the Woods which culminates with the Royal Crescent. SOURCES: Tim Mowl and Brian Earnshaw, 'John Wood. Architect of Obsession' (1988), 65-86; Walter Ison, 'The Georgian Buildings of Bath' (2nd ed. 1980), 115-120, 226-28.

Listing NGR: ST7483965034