No. 1a with Railings

House located at the northeast corner of Queen Square. It was constructed between 1729 and 1734 by John Wood the Elder. The building is constructed of limestone ashlar with a slate mansard roof; the roof is hipped at the corner and features small dormers, with moulded stacks along the party walls. The house has a double-depth plan.

The building is three storeys high with an attic and basement. The facade facing Queen Square is a two-window range, while the facade on Old King Street is symmetrical with five windows. The Old King Street facade showcases a returned low parapet, a modillion cornice and frieze, a first-floor sill band, a ground floor platband, and a plinth. It has horned plate glass sash windows. Eared and shouldered architraves frame the windows on the second floor, while the first floor windows have moulded architraves with cornices. The ground floor windows have plain surrounds. The Queen Square facade features lowered sills to the first floor. The Old King Street facade has painted architraves and reveals, with splayed reveals to the first floor. Lowered sills are present to the central windows and to the right of the first floor. Two blind windows are situated on the second floor to the right, and at the right-of-centre of both the first and ground floors.

An early 19th-century enclosed porch has a returned cornice, blocking course, and an overlight above a six-panel door with inverted corners to the upper panels. A lead rainwater downpipe runs down the corner of the building. The interior was not inspected, but upper floors were partially converted for residential use in 1960 and subsequently adapted for office use, as documented in Bath City Council planning files.

These houses were originally part of John Wood’s development of Queen Square, built after he leased the site from Robert Gay from 1728 and granted underleases between 1729 and 1731. Occupancy is first recorded in rate books in 1734. The original plan to level the sloping site was abandoned due to cost. Queen Square is notable as the first large-scale example of town planning in Bath, drawing on precedents in contemporary London house-building. Wood created a monumental ensemble on a fresh, sloping site. Each side of the square forms a symmetrical composition, but none of the sides are alike. Queen Square represents the earliest and lowest element in the sequence of designs by the Wood family which culminates with the Royal Crescent.