71-79, CHURCH ROAD

This is a row of five early 19th-century terrace houses located on the north side of Church Road, Combe Down. The houses are built of limestone ashlar, with slate and concrete tile roofs. They are three storeys high, each originally with three windows, featuring twelve-pane sashes except for No. 77, which has plain sashes. A few properties have rear extensions beneath a sweeping or extended roof; No. 79 has a more complex roof with an internal valley gutter.

No. 71 has a Greek Revival style porch with panelled pilasters, an entablature, a cornice with peaked blocking, and a panelled inner door. No. 73 has a central door with four fielded panels and a horizontal glazed panel, sheltered by a slab hood on brackets. No. 75 features a deep portico with Roman Doric columns supporting a balcony slab with a stone balustrade, with the columns standing on high podia and a stone balustrade across the frontage. No. 77’s entrance is a part-glazed door under a slab hood on brackets. No. 79 exhibits a balcony on the first floor accessible via French doors; a tent verandah is supported by cast iron standards. The terrace has a plinth, a coved corniced top with a blocking course and parapet, four shared ridge stacks, and a further stack to the coped gable.

The row reflects the best of the Bath terrace tradition. While largely unaltered to the street frontage, the rear elevations display varied treatment, including some older wings. Inspection by Bath Council in 1988 of No. 75 revealed original internal details and fine ground and first-floor rooms, including a Victorian fireplace with red-brown colonnettes with arched details on either side. A partial inspection of No. 79 in 1991 revealed later French windows and a pair of four/one-pane windows onto the first-floor balcony.