1A And 1-6, Wood Street

Six large terrace houses, now offices with shops, built between 1729 and 1734 by John Wood the Elder. The display windows were added in 1871 by J Elkington Gill.

The terrace is constructed in ashlar with rubble to the rear and slate roofs. It has a wide frontage with double mansard roofs. Running the entire width of the terrace at a later date is a very fine display front of common design, brought forward by approximately 1.5 metres from the main elevation. At the left hand end, the terrace faces onto Queen Square at No. 1A, and at the other end it returns to John Street. The terrace is articulated, with Nos. 2 and Nos. 4-5 stepped slightly forward, approximately 100mm, from the remainder.

The buildings are three storeys high with an attic and basement. There are twenty-three plain sash windows. At the second floor level, windows sit in eared architraves. Windows in bays 10-14 (No. 3) are set in plain splayed surrounds. First floor windows have pulvinated friezes and straight cornice hoods. The first floor window lights have been extended downwards, cutting through the former sill band. Eleven small two-light casement dormers with hipped roofs are present, except to the end house which has a flat roof.

The large plate glass display windows are framed by single or paired Corinthian half-columns or pilasters, with two or three pane vertical windows above a deep stall-riser with some circular cast iron vents. At each end short returns have quarter pilasters to the wall, with half-columns and paired half-columns located to bays four-five and nine-ten. These enclose pairs of panelled doors with large transom lights, on two steps. Nos. 5-6 have a 20th-century set-back plate glass display front.

Across the entire frontage runs a continuous unbroken entablature with lead capping from the flat roof. Above the second floor is a modillion cornice with shallow blocking course. The parapet returns at the left hand end to two bays of No. 1A with similar detail to the front and two dormers. The ground floor and basement have sashes in splayed surrounds. A panelled door with architrave and pediment sits to the left. First floor windows have dropped sills and cornice heads.

The end bay to the west side of Queen Square is set slightly behind adjoining No. 4, with which the cornice and parapet are continuous. A platband inscribed "QUEEN SQUARE" in fine Roman lettering runs here. The roof returns with a hipped end, three coped party divisions, and four very large stacks centred to the double roof.

The return to John Street features the entry to No. 6. This side is plain and rendered with a high gable to the flat parapet. There is a single sash at each level to the right and two blind lights to the left. The first floor has a sill band. The main display front returns as at the other end with a further large square display window and an early six-panel door with plain fanlight on three steps, set in a broad plat surround with keystone. Cast iron foot-scrapers remain either side of this door.

The rear is in rubble with various sashes, mostly plain in flush dressed surrounds.

The interiors were not inspected.

This terrace, designed in Wood's characteristic Palladian idiom, forms the north side of Wood Street and was part of the original layout by Wood associated with Queen Square. Work on the street may even have preceded that on the square, the east side of which was the first to be built. As such, these are among the very earliest examples of Wood's standard town-house elevation, which was to be repeated many times over. The original plan for a palace-fronted terrace with a projecting pedimented centre was dropped early on.

The row stands on the site of former fields belonging to Barton's Farm, and the street marked the westward limit of the city's development at the time. Underleases were granted between 1729 and 1731, and the houses first appear in the rate books in 1734. An early occupant was Richard, Earl Tylney, one of Wood's backers, formerly of the Child banking dynasty and of Wanstead House in Essex. Wood's original plans for the street were not realised.

These houses, together with the east side of Queen Square, were the first built of the John Wood development. They make an interesting contrast to the later Adam-inspired terrace on the other side of the street, Northumberland Buildings, of half a century later. The Victorian alterations are notable in their own right and form some of Bath's best later shop-fronts.