General Wade'S House

ABBEY CHURCH YARD (North side)

12/06/50 No. 14 General Wade's House

GV I

House, now with shop. c1720, shop inserted early C19, restored 1976 by David Brain and Derek Stollar. MATERIALS: Bath limestone ashlar, roof not visible. PLAN: Single-depth house with windows only on the south facade, back-to-back with No.15 Cheap Street (qv). EXTERIOR: Three storeys with cellars and full height attic, four bays. The ground floor has a shopfront of Regency character of which most is certainly of genuinely 1820-1830 date, shown as now but with plate glass windows in pre WWII photograph (Ison). Double-fronted shop with panelled house door to left. Pilasters frame doorway and shopfront, under continuous fascia. Giant fluted Ionic order through first and second floors support entablature with a pulvinated frieze and modillion cornice. All windows are late C18 type sashes, nine/twelve on the first floor, six/nine on the second floor, six/six in the attic. The first floor windows, and probably those on the second floor have had the sills dropped; windows are set within bolection-moulded architraves, with floral garlands suspended at second floor level. The attic has panelled pilasters cornice and parapet surmounted by three vases. Ashlar end stacks with pots. INTERIOR: Not inspected. According to Green, except some simple panelling in an upper storey, nothing of interest remains in the house¿. The ground and first floors, together with the staircase, date from the recent conversion of the lower floors into a shop for the National Trust. HISTORY: This house has long been connected with General (later Field-Marshal) George Wade (1673-1748) who was MP for Bath from 1722 until his death (see bronze plaque), but recent study suggests that the connection is unfounded. The house has thus been erroneously attributed to Lord Burlington, and to Colen Campbell, on the basis that they designed Wade's house in Old Burlington Street, London (a thoroughly Palladian affair). This stylistically transitional elevation is in the local Baroque manner, but with elements of a more correct form of classicism. It is also the first appearance of the Palladian use of a giant order in Bath, and is an outstanding example of an early Georgian town house. Following the installation of the shopfront it became theRepository of works for Industry' (Bath Directory, 1832). Late C19 photographs in the National Monuments Record show it in c1900 as the Bible Society's Depot, with the Religious Tract Society occupying the ground floor. This is now used as a National Trust shop. SOURCES: RCHME Report at National Monuments Record, Swindon ref. 78259; Mowbray Green, The Eighteenth Century Architecture of Bath¿ (1904), pl iii and 12; Walter Ison,The Georgian Buildings of Bath¿ (2nd ed. 1980), 108; Graham Finch, `Shopfront Record¿ (Bath City Council) 1992.

Listing NGR: ST7507864782