St John'S Hospital (Including Chapel Court House)

St John's Hospital, including Chapel Court House

Almshouses, now called Fitzjocelyn House. Founded in 1174 by Bishop Joscelin, rebuilt in 1573, then pulled down in 1727 and immediately rebuilt by John Wood the Elder, who modified an earlier scheme of 1717 by John Killigrew at the expense of the Duke of Chandos. The buildings were substantially rebuilt behind the front in 1956 by Alan Crozier-Cole following war damage.

The buildings are constructed in limestone ashlar and coursed rubble with slate roofs. They form two principal ranges enclosing the east and north sides of Chapel Court, with the northern range known as Chapel Court House.

The long east range faces St Michael's Place and consists of coursed rubble with pecked ashlar to the ground floor, rising three storeys with an attic. It has ten windows, with a set-back later section to the right of four storeys and attic containing four windows. The main range features a late twentieth-century attic with various casements; the remainder has glazing-bar sashes in raised plat surrounds with floating cornices—twelve-pane sashes to the ground floor and eighteen-pane sashes to the first floor. Bay five contains a throughway with a wide portico featuring an open pediment supported on paired Roman Doric columns and a moulded architrave to an arched entrance. A platband runs above the ground floor, with plain quoin pilasters, a cornice with blocking course and parapet that sweeps down in the last two bays, and two large ashlar chimneys. The set-back unit has similar narrow eight and twelve-pane sashes. The throughway is flanked by four-panel doors on each side, with an archway featuring a keystone and responds extending partway through.

The west front, facing Chapel Court, has an eight-bay open arcade with plain arches to the keystone and deep intrados on impost bands above a platband. This sits above twelve and eighteen-pane sashes with sill bands, architraves and a cornice to a pulvinated frieze, all covered by a full entablature with pulvinated frieze and modillion eaves cornice beneath seven late twentieth-century dormers. Within the arcade are eighteen-pane sashes set in rubble walling, with panelled doors at either end. The right-hand end has one bay set back, and the return features a bridge fronting the Chapel. A plaque records that John Wood built the hospital in 1727.

Chapel Court House forms the north side of the courtyard, comprising four bays plus one set-back bay to the right, all in ashlar. It features twelve-pane sashes in a full attic above twelve-pane sashes in eared architraves at the second floor, eighteen-pane sashes with architrave, cornice and pulvinated frieze at the first floor, and fifteen-pane sashes in plat surrounds with keystones to the ground floor. To the right is a panelled door in a banded surround with a coat of arms and swags to the lintel. A plaque centred to the ground floor records that Horace Walpole stayed here in 1766. Above the ground floor runs a deep platband, with a first-floor sill band and full entablature with pulvinated frieze and modillion cornice, all detail returned to the arcaded front. The left facade abuts No. 6 Chapel Court. The rear of the range was extended and restructured in 1963 by A. Crozier-Cole.

The interiors were not inspected, but an elaborate Baroque buffet of stone with a shell-headed niche was inserted into Fitzjocelyn House. Chandos House contains a balustraded wooden staircase.

The building history shows three construction phases: Phase 1 in 1527 created a range of six rooms; Phase 2 in 1580 added another six rooms to the west with storeys above let out as lodgings, served by an external stair to the first floor on the north side of the passage overlooking the courtyard; Phase 3 in 1727 saw John Wood's rebuild for the first Duke of Chandos with an external stone stair to the first floor on the south side of the passage. The central wall with chimney stacks was retained from the first phase. These buildings represent John Wood's first major enterprise in Bath; he took over from Killigrew, whose work he considered inferior. They form an unusually collegiate ensemble for Bath, blending traditional building styles with Wood's Palladianism.

In October 1877 to January 1878, the interior was refitted and floors, ceilings, partitions, doors, grates, windows and their casings were removed. New four-pane windows were installed and Wood's external staircase was removed. The wider window on the first floor is a replacement for the door that was at the head of the staircase. Chapel Court House, formerly No. 3 Chapel Court, was enlarged over the site of a warehouse to the north by Alan Crozier-Cole, Surveyor to St John's from 1954.