Nos. 5-11 (Consec) Francis Hotel

Terrace houses, now a hotel, on the south side of Queen Square in Bath. Part of a composition begun in 1729 and completed in 1736, designed by architect John Wood the Elder. The eastern four houses were entirely rebuilt in 1955 following severe bomb damage in April 1942, meticulously reconstructed in facsimile according to an inscription on the front.

The building is constructed in limestone ashlar with a slate roof. It comprises three storeys, an attic and basement, with twenty-one windows across the main front. Bays one to three and thirteen to fifteen are brought forward under pediments. All windows are plain sashes, including twelve dormers, one of which is paired to a central mullion. At second floor level, windows are set in eared architraves; at first floor, they sit in moulded architraves with a straight cornice above a pulvinated frieze, which extends down through a plain sill band. Ground floor windows have plain splay surrounds; basement windows have plain reveals without splay.

Several ground floor windows are set in recessed arched panels in bays one, two, three, ten, eleven, twelve, sixteen, seventeen and eighteen. The centre bays (thirteen, fourteen and fifteen) have architraves enriched with egg-and-dart ornament. Two part-glazed panelled doors with transom lights occupy bays thirteen and fifteen, flanking the main entrance. This principal entry comprises a pair of panelled doors under a transom light, sheltered by a deep projecting half-cylindrical glazed canopy supported on decorative cast iron beams carried on two slender cast iron columns. Bay twenty-one (No. 11) has an eight-panel fielded door in an eared architrave with a deep frieze to swept ends; above the door is a relief of a female mask set against a scallop shell, flanked by palm fronds. This door shares a landing with the entrance to No. 12.

The basement is set in a plinth. The centre three bays have a rusticated ground floor; bays with recessed arches have an impost band, otherwise a band runs between ground floor windows. A modillion cornice sits over all, with egg-and-dart enrichment to the centre pediment, blocking course and pediment. The left-hand gable is coped, with three coped party divisions and two large stacks. Bay sixteen carries a Sun Insurance plaque numbered 95830.

The return to Barton Street (on the left) comprises three plus two bays, with a pediment and step forward over the three-bay section. All details match those of the main front. At attic level there is a straight parapet over a central valley to a mansard roof, with a central stack and three lights, plus three blind lights in lower levels; no basement is visible on this elevation. The rear has been mainly rebuilt with plain sashes at four levels plus dormers. A deep wing occupies the centre, with an entrance approached by steps and a twentieth-century portico to the left. To the left of the wing, some original elements survive in the rear wall, including one of a pair of semicircular turrets with arched and twelve-pane sash windows.

The interior has not been inspected and comprises mainly post-war reconstruction.

Across the main front, plain railings sit on an ashlar curb with returned ends and gates to basement staircases at bays six and twenty.

John Wood leased the site from Robert Gay from 1728 onwards and granted underleases between 1729 and 1731 to various developers. The houses are first recorded as occupied in the rate books in 1734. Wood originally intended to level the sloping site but abandoned this plan on grounds of cost. The south side of Queen Square was architecturally the least elaborate of the square's four sides. Extensive bomb damage in April 1942 further diminished its relative importance within the square. However, as a component part of an outstanding architectural set-piece, meticulously reconstructed in facsimile in 1955, these houses remain of great importance. John Wood the Elder lived at No. 9. The Francis Hotel takes its name from Mrs Francis, who ran a quality boarding house at this address in the early to mid-nineteenth century.

Queen Square is of exceptional importance as the first large-scale instance of town planning undertaken in Bath. Wood drew on precedents in contemporary London house-building and, through courageous and skilful pursuit of his vision, created a monumental ensemble on a fresh sloping site at some distance west of the former city walls. Each side of the square forms a symmetrical composition, but none of the sides are identical. Queen Square forms the earliest and lowest element in the sequence of set-pieces by the Woods which culminates in the Royal Crescent.