Museum Of Bath At Work

The Museum of Bath at Work is a former tennis court that later became a brewery and is now an industrial museum. It was built in 1777, with 19th-century additions and 20th-century alterations, designed by Richard Scrase based on plans provided by the Earl of Pembroke.

The building is constructed from limestone rubble with remnants of old limewash and features freestone quoins. It has a parapeted single-pile pantile roof that is gabled at both ends. The south elevation has a double-height, nine-window front with nine 20th-century tilting windows at a high level, a pair of 20th-century plank doors in the center, and a similar door to the right at a lower level. There is evidence that some windows were originally longer and have been raised, along with indications of other possible former openings. The building has flush quoins at the left and right angles, a simple coved cornice at the eaves, and a coped parapet.

The north elevation features eight 20th-century fixed-light metal windows, each with a tilting opening section, and a pair of similar fire escape doors. There is a single-storey and basement ashlar extension to the right with a concrete-tile pitched roof and coped verges, which includes a 20th-century door to the north and a 20th-century six-over-six sash window to the left return, along with a 20th-century window to the basement. A 20th-century ashlar flat-roofed extension is attached to the left of the north front, with a cavetto cornice along the front. The gabled west elevation has a blocked round window in the gable, a blank oval stone plaque above, three blocked windows, three 20th-century windows, and three 20th-century doors in the main range and extension to the basement and ground floor.

Inside, the building was adapted for brewery use around 1830 when two floors were inserted, but it was later completely reconstructed for museum use, opening in 1978. Only the walls from the original double-height interior remain. Historically, apart from the courts at Hampton Court and Merton Street in Oxford, this is likely the only surviving pre-1800 tennis court.