Royal Hotel

MANVERS STREET (East side) Royal Hotel (Formerly Listed as: MANVERS STREET Berni Royal Hotel) 11/08/72

GV II

Hotel. c1845. Possibly by HE Goodridge. MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, slate roofs. PLAN: Large L-plan building with emphasised quadrant corner, facing Bath Spa railway station (qv), all in traditional Bath classical detail, and with low wing, rear right, behind boundary wall. EXTERIOR: Three storeys, attic and basement, two+three windows to Manvers Street, three to the quadrant, and one+five to Railway Place, all sashes with glazing bars, in moulded stone architraves. All sections have six-pane to attic, over twelve, eighteen and twelve-pane, to ground floor lower half of each sash is plain in most cases. First floor quadrant windows have eared architraves, and cornices, with pediment to centre unit. Also several pavement grilles to basement lights. Central to quadrant is pair of panelled doors under transom light, set to deep reveals, porte-cochere projects over pavement, with slender cast iron columns to flat canopy on filigree iron brackets. Whole has small plinth, channelled ground floor under frieze and moulded band, full entablature with deep moulded cornice, attic, moulded dentil cornice and blocking. Quadrant has two Ionic columns in-antis, and paired Doric antae, inflected at entablature, carried through to attic storey, with small decorative blockings over the Ionic columns. To left are five bays, to right single bay with flat pilaster divisions, also carried through attic. Last two bays to Manvers Street are set back above ground floor, with four-bay cast iron balustrade, and with pair of part-glazed doors to transom light, in deep reveals. Sundry ashlar stacks to coped divisions. To right is tall ashlar boundary wall, behind which is square single storey extension with slate pyramid roof carrying prominent square lantern. End first floor window on Railway Place was once doorway leading to footbridge which went directly to platform level at station. INTERIOR: Considerably altered. HISTORY: The design is matched by the Argyll Hotel, Dorchester Street (qv) on the opposite side of Manvers Street, and the two buildings make a formal entrance to the street leading from the railway station to the city centre. This approach was laid out in accordance with the Great Western Railway Act of 1835. They are also early examples of railway hotels. SOURCES: (Jackson N: Nineteenth Century Bath - Architects and Architecture: Bath: 1991-: 71).

Listing NGR: ST7526964400