Nos. 3 And 3A And Attached Railings And Vaults

Nos. 3 and 3A Fountain Buildings and Attached Railings and Vaults

Health club and offices. Built circa 1775, possibly by John Wood the Younger. The shopfront was added in 1886 by builder C Wibley.

The building occupies a wedge-shaped corner site and forms the termination to two ranges of Fountain Buildings. It is constructed of limestone ashlar with a rubble plinth to the basement. The roof is a hipped parapeted mansard covered with Welsh slate, featuring very large slates on the upper slope to the right. The building rises three storeys with an attic and basement. The rear is enclosed by another building, and has a coped party wall with a shared ashlar stack (with early clay pots) connecting to No. 2 Fountain Buildings. Ashlar chimney stacks rise from the left and right side walls.

The entrance front faces left and is a three-window range. The first floor contains a blind window to the left, and to the centre and right are six-over-six sash windows in cyma-moulded architraves with friezes, cornices, and stone sills. The centre window has a pediment; the right window has a lowered sill and wrought iron balconette. The second floor has three six-over-six sashes in cyma-moulded architraves with stone sills; the centre and right windows have wrought iron balconettes. The ground floor has a six-panel door to the left with flush beaded and fielded panels and an oval light to the upper panels, set within a stone doorcase with cyma-moulded architrave on a flat surround with heavy console brackets supporting a projecting moulded cornice, approached by one pennant step. To the centre-right is a pair of 19th-century half-glazed shop doors with moulded panels and a single-pane overlight, set in a plain reveal with one pennant step.

The building's narrow faces terminate Fountain Buildings. Each has a first-floor six-over-six sash in a splayed cyma-moulded architrave with frieze and cornice, rising from a lowered stone sill with wrought iron balconette. The second floor has a six-over-six sash in a cyma-moulded architrave with stone sill. Ground floor openings include two-light and single-light shop windows, with shop frontage continued from the left side featuring a two-light window with timber mullion and depressed arched heads flanked by panelled pilasters with carved consoles to the entablature. The basement contains a plate glass sash in a splayed reveal with stone sill, approached by pennant area steps, and has a total of four doorways serving the vaults.

A band course over the ground floor carries incised lettering reading "FOUNTAIN BUILDINGS". Bracketed eaves cornices and coped parapets are continuous with No. 4 Fountain Buildings. Two double and two single dormers have plate glass sashes.

The right side is a three-window range with similar fenestration; the first floor has lowered sills and one blind window, the ground floor has plate glass, and the basement has two openings in the high plinth. This face also carries a band course with incised lettering "FOUNTAIN BUILDINGS" to the left, and bracketed cornice and coped parapet continuous with the other faces.

The interior was inspected by Bath Council in 1981. The first floor features panelled ovolo dados and moulded door panels in the hall.

Attached to the building are wrought iron railings and a gate with hooped and arrowhead details; the bottom rail is now set on buns supported on Pennant stone bases.

The group of double-fronted houses of which this forms part was built by William Philips and others, and incorporated an earlier house within their midst.