Nos. 1 And 2 And Attached Ironwork And Stone Piers

A pair of houses dating to around 1810, probably designed by John Pinch the Elder, with twentieth-century alterations. These are significant early examples of the semi-detached villa and of suburban housing development on the north-western slopes of Bath, from which they commanded fine westward views over the pastureland of the High Common.

The buildings are constructed in limestone ashlar with Welsh slate parapeted double pile mansard roofs and coped gable walls. Each roof has one small ashlar ridge stack and two ashlar stacks positioned at each end.

The pair is arranged as handed houses, each with a segmental-fronted Doric porch containing four columns with full entablature featuring a triglyph and metope frieze and blocking course. The porches are approached via two flights of curved pennant steps with wrought iron handrails. Nineteenth-century simple wrought iron panel railings with lead bosses and iron trellis screens are fitted within the porches and across the front elevation. Simple railings continue to left and right before the basement areas and terminate in ashlar piers with pyramidal caps.

The main elevation rises through three storeys with an attic and half basement, arranged as a four-window range. The first floor contains in the outer bows to left and right one six-over-six curved sash with margin lights, each with the sill lowered and fixed glazing one pane deep inserted. To the centre-right is one six-over-nine sash giving access to the roof of the porch; to the centre-left is a similar six-over-six sash with a timber panel below. The second floor has four six-over-six sashes in plain reveals with stone sills, curved in the outer bows.

The ground floor originally had one six-over-six curved sash with margin lights in the bow to the left, and one nineteenth-century plate glass sash with cast iron balconette to the right. The centre features two eight-panel doors with reeded and moulded lower panels and upper panels glazed with decorative fanlights in deep round-headed reveals, set within the segmental-fronted Doric porches described above.

The basement level to left and right contains six-over-six sashes with margin lights similar to those of the ground floor left.

The mansard contains four single dormers. To the right are two six-over-six horned sashes largely retaining moulded architrave. To the left are one six-over-six sash in a dormer with moulded architrave and one rebuilt dormer with a twentieth-century top-hung window.

A deep ashlar plinth extends to the basement at the plat band over the ground floor, with rounded decoration to left and right over pilaster strips. These pilaster strips continue as a blocking course to the porches and along the left and right sides of the building. A first-floor sill band extends across the bows, now cut through by the windows. A frieze and moulded cornice over the first floor are supported by four panelled pilaster strips with reeded capitals positioned to the left, right, centre-left and centre-right. The building is finished with a moulded eaves cornice and coped parapet. A returned ashlar moulded string runs along the left and right sides. The left and right four sides of the building show scattered fenestration of nineteenth and twentieth-century windows.

One building has a three-storey nineteenth-century rear extension with a canted bay to its right side.

The interior was not fully inspected at the time of listing. Some fireplaces and features are known to be of recent introduction. The ground floor bow has a cornice added by present owners. A piece of cornice probably dating to 1779 (as mentioned in deeds which reference building from that date) has been retained, alongside a new reeded mantelpiece fireplace and niche cupboards added by recent owners. A room with French doors on the ground floor contains a reeded marble fireplace installed by previous owners, incorporating an 1851 grate from upstairs.

The building also includes attached ironwork and stone piers as integral features.