Nos 1-20 (Consec) And Attached Railings And Overthrows

Lansdown Crescent comprises twenty terrace houses forming part of a serpentine terrace that follows the contours of the hillside. Built circa 1789-1793 by John Palmer for developer Charles Spackman, with 19th and 20th century alterations. The crescent was originally known as Spackman's Buildings, Upper Crescent, and Lansdown Place.

Materials and Construction

The terrace is built of limestone ashlar with squared rubblestone to the rear elevations. It has steeply pitched slate mansard roofs with moulded chimney stacks rising from coped party walls. The houses follow a double-depth plan, slightly narrowing towards the front. In houses 2-19, which sit on the concave curve, the rooms are rectangular, with the wall thickness accommodating the curvature.

External Architecture

Each house stands three storeys high with attics and basements. Most houses have three-window fronts, whilst the terminal houses (numbers 1 and 20) feature five-window fronts with entrances in their return elevations. The entire terrace facade is unified by a balustraded parapet, rich modillion cornice, decorative frieze, second floor band, first floor sill band, ground floor platband, and chamfered rustication with incised voussoirs. Keystones die into the platband. Doorways have rectangular overlights, some incorporating ornamental fanlights, with eight-panel doors. The sills of numbers 1 and 20 form part of the platband. Houses 1-10 have six-panel doors positioned to the left; houses 11-20 have doors to the right.

Number 1, at the right end of the terrace, steps forward and has urns with festoons positioned over quoins. The centre portion steps slightly forward with a full-height segmental bay containing three windows per floor—plate glass sashes to the ground floor and two-over-two-pane sash windows with horizontal glazing bars above. First floor windows have balconettes. The right return has cornices and friezes to the second and first floors, ground floor platband, and windows towards the rear. Steps ascend to an enclosed porch with clasping pilasters supporting a dentil cornice, blocking course, frieze, and semicircular openings to the returns.

Number 20, at the left end and now converted to apartments, mirrors number 1 in design but reversed, with horned six-over-six-pane sash windows. Its entrance sits in the left return within the angle formed by the set-back rear range behind the bridge. Unusually lively scrolled and wreathed wrought iron balustrades flank the steps up to a dog gate and set-back six-panel door. The painted stone doorcase has Tuscan pilasters supporting a pediment.

Number 2 features horizontal glazing bars to two-over-two-pane sash windows and a lamp incorporated in the fanlight. Number 3 has six-over-six-pane sash windows and a plain overlight. Number 4 has horizontal glazing bars to two-over-two-pane sash windows. Numbers 5-9 have six-over-six-pane sash windows, some with horns. Number 9 underwent alterations by Wilson, Willcox and Ames in 1884.

Numbers 10 and 11 step forward and are paired. Their central four bays step further forward beneath a modillion-corniced pediment. The facade beneath is articulated by a grand order of four Ionic pilasters with six-over-six-pane sash windows between—two at the centre of the first floor flank a semicircular arched recess over which the ornamental platband rises. The painted paired entrance is articulated by four Tuscan columns supporting a cornice and frieze. Set-back doors with radial glazing bars to fanlights in overlights flank a deep coved niche containing a wrought iron grille of eight arrow-pointed shafts radiating from a central circle. Number 10 to the right has sliding louvered blinds to the two outer ranges. Both houses share an entrance landing flanked by single lamp standards attached to the railings.

Number 12 has a similar fanlight and a good serpentine overthrow and lantern to the front of the railings. Number 13 has six-over-six-pane sash windows and plate glass sashes to the first floor, all without horns. Number 14 has two-over-two-pane sash windows without horns, sliding louvered shutters to the first floor, and a good serpentine overthrow to the railings. Number 15 has a similar overthrow and snuffer to the right of the door, with six-over-six-pane sash windows—those to first and ground floors with horns. Number 16 has similar details. Number 17 is similar but without horns to windows. Number 18 has horns to first floor windows and sliding shutters to second and first floor windows.

Interior of Number 4 (recorded by Bath Preservation Trust, 1995)

The front door has a highly decorative fanlight with brass decorations and a massive brass lock. It opens to two panelled mahogany doors. A panelled door to the front hall has reeded architraves with square pateras, a large decorative fanlight above with brass acanthus rosettes, and narrow decorative panels either side with panels below.

The front room is highly decorated with a curved arch on the wall opposite the windows and a grey and white marble fireplace with duck's-nest grate. A small concealed cupboard hides behind the shutter box. The stone cantilevered open-stringed staircase has three flights with metal banisters and mahogany handrail.

The first floor front room has a duck's-nest grate. The drawing room is highly decorated with a grey marble fireplace featuring ribbon crosses across the mantle and on columns. The morning room has a marble fireplace with black inset and brass decorative flowers.

The third floor contains a gutter box, lead-lined, running from the right-hand front room through a landing cupboard across the top of the stairs into the bathroom, then out to the rear of the house, with a hinged lid.

The rear bedroom has a stone fireplace with wooden mantelpiece and decorative cast iron inset. The basement has a huge old dresser at the rear and flagged floor in the passage.

Interior of Number 11 (recorded by Bath Preservation Trust, 1995)

The outer hall has stone flags and an ornate fanlight over the front door, with a rim lock with brass knob and safety bar (original key in owner's possession).

The ground floor library has a dark red marble fireplace with marble masks on the jambs. Bookcases glazed above mahogany cupboards, believed to have belonged to William Beckford, sit in the east wall. The back room has an early 19th century plain richly grained grey marble fireplace with rectangular-profiled shelf and plain pilasters supporting three modillions each in an otherwise plain entablature either side of a flat elliptical arch with central keystone springing from moulded imposts. A new central ceiling rose in the rear room was made from an 18th century mould. The rear 19th century extension has panelled cupboards on the west wall.

The ground staircase to the second floor has a speaking tube with ivory mouthpiece and a Victorian window with coloured glass. The first floor has original pine flooring covered over in the 1930s. The second floor front has a recess between window and fireplace with scrolled stone brackets at the corners. All rooms have marble fireplaces. Pelmet boxes over windows in the first floor rooms are 19th century Baroque.

The open-string cantilevered stone stairs have square metal balusters, two per tread, with a Tuscan columnar newel within a cluster of balusters and mahogany veneered handrail. Three vaulted cellars approximately six feet high have flagged stone floors. The wine cellar has stone bins—three over three on each side—with a coal cellar in the middle featuring an 18-inch chute.

Interior of Number 12 (inspected by Bath City Council, 1977, 1999, etc.)

The basement has stone stairs with torus nosings and square banisters. The front room has six-pane sashes with panelled shutters, glazed door, six-panel cupboard door, and Palladian dado rail. The centre room has a glazed door with narrow cyma architrave. The back room (subdivided) has two sash windows to the back area and a dresser base with Doric columns. A rear extension has an elliptical stone vault.

The ground floor entrance hall has highly decorated cornice with scrollwork to the soffit and ceiling rose, original inner doorway with square Regency fanlight and reeded architraves, fine hardwood six-panel doors to rooms, and black and white stone floor. The stone staircase has moulded soffit, torus and fillet nosings, and iron balustrade with lotus cast iron newel and double spiral-scrolled, leaf-enriched balusters to alternate steps with mahogany handrail.

The front room has original cornice with lotus leaves and scrollwork and reeding in the soffit, small ceiling rose, Regency grey marble fireplace, deep plain elliptical arch to back room with modern doors, dado with moulded rail and skirting, and six-panel mahogany door with later architrave.

The back room (subdivided) has cornice as the last room, Venetian window with arched head, good larger ceiling rose with radiating leaf ornament, windows with original shutters, Regency dark grey marble fireplace with reeded architrave and corner roundels with circular decoration, and six-panel mahogany door as front room with original cyma-moulded architrave. An early rear extension has lamb's-tongue moulded window sashes and door.

The first floor landing has Regency cornice as the hall's and a semicircular arch in the spine wall. The staircase up to the second floor has square timber banisters. The front room has large moulded cornice as in ground floor rooms, large rose with central sunflower and swirling acanthus leaves, reeded white marble fireplace with leaves carved on corner blocks, six-panel Georgian mahogany door, three windows with raised and fielded ovolo shutters and wide architraves, and modern three-centred arch to back room. The back room has cornice as front room, Georgian mahogany six-panel door, Venetian window, and original torus and cavetto skirting.

The second floor front room has three windows, tiny cavetto and astragal cornice, and two six-panel ovolo cupboard doors with narrow architraves and matching landing door. The back room has cornice as front room and triple window.

The third floor has two small rooms front, one with original arch-type fireplace with nice Victorian cast iron basket grate. Two small rooms at the back have one with fireplace as front room, probably original.

Interior of Number 15 (inspected by Bath City Council, 1979)

The basement front room has no cornice, windows with folding shutters, six-panel door, and cavetto and torus skirting. The back room has two windows with folding unmoulded shutters, six-panel unmoulded door with cyma reversa single-fascia beaded architrave, and large Tudor-arched fireplace. The rear extension has an original sash window with astragal and hollow glazing bars and shutters as above, with an arch with double glazed doors to the space under the vault below the bridge to the ground floor back door.

The ground floor outer hall has elaborate cornice with palmettes, florets and egg and dart ornament, dado rail, and inner doorway with rectangular fanlight and double glazed doors with margin lights. The inner hall has an arch at the foot of the staircase with fluted pilasters, anthemion frieze with egg and dart in the architrave and fluted soffit, and six-panel doors to rooms with reeded architraves with corner blocks decorated with florets and panelled reveals.

The staircase has mahogany handrail with ebony inlay and a scroll at its foot. The very delicate iron balustrade has banisters to alternate steps decorated with cast lead husks and quatrefoils. Those to the steps between comprise a central key-patterned baluster with cast leaf motifs above and below between thin 9 by 18 millimetre plain banisters. A plaster rose adorns the half landing.

The first floor front room has three windows, fine acanthus cornice with decorated soffit, very ornate finely detailed ceiling rose, white marble fireplace with plain shelf with echinus and fillet bed mould, reeded architrave with anthemion on corner blocks and quarter-rounded corner returns, and symmetrical reeded door architraves. The back room has cornice and ceiling rose as front room.

The second floor front west room has echinus, cove and astragal cornice, two windows with box shutters, and good original white marble fireplace with square-section shelf, cavetto and astragal cornice, segment and fillet narrow reeded pilasters, and wide architrave with beaded cavetto, brown-veined marble fascia, and white inner fillet and astragal. A large D-shaped Victorian arch leads to the back room. The front east room has cornice as west room. The back room has cornice as front room, two windows with original glazing bars, original six-panel ovolo doors to cupboard and landing, and fine original white marble fireplace with square shelf, narrow reeded pilasters with single water leaf capital, narrow matching reeded bed mould, and wide brown-veined black marble fascia and narrow white astragal to opening.

The third floor landing has an elliptical arch overhead of stairs with a pair of delicate Grecian consoles. Front room 1 has simple white marble fireplace with shelf and good cast iron grate with segmental arch and bowed fire basket. The large back room has a fireplace as last but with older hob grate.

Interior of Number 16 (inspected by Bath City Council, 1984)

The ground floor entrance hall has modern stairs and good original cornice with frieze with alternate paterae and short runs of fluting, original fanlight, and mahogany Georgian door with wide two-fascia echinus architrave. The staircase hall has cornice as per entrance hall and stone staircase with moulded soffits and mahogany inlaid handrail.

The front room has acanthus and egg and dart cornice with good frieze of urns, cherubs and garlands, two windows with box shutters, and fine white marble fireplace with shelf with fillet and ovolo bed mould, pilasters with diminishing pendant rings below paterae in corner blocks, and symmetrical echinus architrave with astragals and roundels in corner blocks.

The back room (subdivided) has the same cornice, astragal and hollow sash windows with box shutters, and six-panel doors to cupboard and hall.

The first floor has ceiling height of approximately 13 feet 9 inches. The front room has a modern staircase partitioned off, good cornice with acanthus enriched bed mould with palmettes and garlands, three windows with box shutters, double console white marble early 19th century fireplace with segmental arch, and six-panel echinus-moulded mahogany doors. The back room has the same cornice, two windows, and good Georgian timber fireplace with shelf with enriched bed mould and frieze decorated with crossed sprays in the middle and garlands of fruit and flowers either side.

The second floor landing has dado rail. The front west room has moulded cornice, two windows with box shutters, fireplace with plain marble shelf and architrave with timber cyma-reversa and bead moulding and plain marble fascia, and six-panel ovolo doors with single-fascia architraves. The front east room has one window and same cornice. The back room (subdivided) has two windows and one wall cupboard with six-panel door.

The third floor has four-panel unmoulded doors and two rooms front.

Interior of Number 19 (partly inspected by Bath City Council and Bath Preservation Trust survey of interiors, 1994)

The ground floor front room was Beckford's library with high quality mahogany bookcases, presumably by H.E. Goodridge. It has a brown marble fireplace with four scrolled brackets supporting the mantle and open hearth. Yellow scagliola marble window cills have twelve drawers inset below with wooden drawer knobs. Two-panelled mahogany doors are present.

The rear room has a plain marble fireplace, possibly modern, brought in by the present owner. Doors are new to the house; cornice and wall frieze are concealed above a false ceiling. The drawing room has ornate frieze and cornice; the room was originally larger. The present fireplace was installed by William Beckford, originally red and black marble, now painted over. Double doors in the partition from conversion to flat; the six-panelled door is also thought to be an addition.

The staircase was altered by Goodridge and is barrel-vaulted for Beckford with pairs of semicircular arches on Grecian consoles above with voids above, producing a Soane-like spatial effect. Light enters through a central panel. At the bottom of each flight of stairs are doorways. Door arches have carved wooden supports with scroll pattern and layers of leaves on the front. Doorways have glazed arches over.

The first floor front room has a massive arched fireplace, now painted, presumably by Goodridge for Beckford.

Interior of Number 20 (inspected by Bath City Council, 1980)

This house was formerly joined with number 19 when Beckford was in residence (1823-1844).

The basement north room has two windows to the area, stone flagged floor, and four-panel ovolo door. The south room with bow has an Edwardian fireplace. The south east room is the kitchen. The south west room has one window.

The ground floor hall has cornice with reeded soffit and palmettes in echinus bed mould. The back room north has original reeded cornice with blocks and paterae, two windows, and very fine white marble fireplace with reeded architrave with carved roundels at corners and acanthus leaf ornament to inner cavetto. The back room (north west) has one window. The centre room south with bow has cornice and shutters as back north, six-panel door, and fine white marble fireplace with shelf with reeded edge and cavetto and echinus bed moulds, tapering pilasters with deep cavetto bases, water leaves to tops of tapering shafts and acanthus to capitals, and Greek key pattern with palmettes in frieze. The south west room has one window, original reeded cornice with egg and dart, and semicircular arched recess. The south east room has cornice as room above.

The first floor larger front room has one window with three windows in the bow, all with folding shutters with raised and fielded ovolo shutters. The very fine cornice has cove decorated with water leaves, soffit with scrollwork, and frieze with garlands and medallions, probably a later addition. The dado has fluted rail with quatrefoils. The fine white marble fireplace has cornice, frieze with swags and bows, and panelled pilasters with husks and medallions in frieze over. The six-panel door has reeded architrave and corner blocks with leaf ornament.

The small front room (altered by Lord Strathcona) has reeded cornice with acanthus leaves in bed mould and one window.

The long narrow room over the arch to the west has ceiling in three bays, three coffers wide, each bay with nine coffers. The coffers are set in square-edge boarding and decorated with gilded egg and tongue ornament. Three windows have splayed oak shutters and cyma-moulded architraves with two fascias—two single sashes which slide up into the wall and central pair of casements. Oak panelled dado is present. The north wall facing the windows has oak fittings: three dado-high sections with panelled doors, drawers and shelves over. Some shelves have glazed doors, with high doors either end, one glazed, the other panelled. Greek cornice with egg and dart and panelled pilasters with paterae over are present. An eared architrave with mirror sits at the blocked doorway in the end wall.

The main stairs (west) have cornice as front drawing room but without its frieze, Venetian window, and four six-panelled doors with cornices and friezes with Greek ornament. Back stairs sit to the north west.

The back room (north) has window with cavetto-moulded raised and fielded shutters, six-panel door, and torus skirting. The back room (north east) has one window, door and skirtings as above.

Historical Context

This outstanding terrace was designed by Palmer for Charles Spackman, coachbuilder and developer. Construction was undertaken by various speculating builders, some of whom were ruined by the bank failures of 1793. Its sinuous contour, following the slope of the hillside, lends it an organic grace unmatched elsewhere. Christopher Pound compared it to the serpentine 'line of beauty' defined by Hogarth in his 1753 treatise 'Analysis of Beauty', but this picturesque effect is more the consequence of setting than of intention. Its lofty position and grassed foreground give it a detached and picturesque setting that is the pinnacle of the Georgian suburban dream of 'rus in urbe', and it forms the northern culmination of the sequence of Bath's urban set-pieces.

Individual House Histories

Number 3: The Bath Chronicle records that this house was "in a forward state of completion" in March 1794 when Trembath was declared bankrupt. It was Miss Fossiter's Seminary for Young Ladies in 1809.

Number 9: The rear wing was extended to the back basement area wall and is thus shown on the Harcourt Masters map of 1808. From 1795 to 1799 the artist John Saunders lived there.

Number 10: This was occupied by Miss Coobar's 'British Boarding School' in 1809.

Number 15: Was first occupied by Mrs Margaret Graves (1727-1808), widow of Admiral Samuel Graves, who moved into the newly built house. Her letters have been serialised in 'Bath History'.

Number 19: Was purchased by William Beckford in 1836 and amalgamated with number 20. It was extensively altered in 1838 with H.E. Goodridge as architect. In 1844 he also occupied number 18 (according to rate books), using it as a storage repository for his furniture. This was converted into flats in 1970.

Number 20: Was unfinished in 1794 when its builder, Samuel Rabey, was declared bankrupt. It was Miss Habershon's School for Young Ladies in 1809. It was William Beckford's home from soon after he left Fonthill in 1822 until shortly before his death in 1844. More recently, it was the home of James Lees-Milne, historian and diarist. Beckford also acquired number 1 Lansdown Place West and built a bridge across the carriageway to the mews.