Claverton Lodge

Claverton Lodge is a large detached house, now in multiple occupation, located on Bathwick Hill. Dating from around 1820, it underwent extensive modification around 1896 by the architect J.M. Brydon. The building is constructed of ashlar with a slate roof.

The house is set well below the adjacent pavement level, with the entrance accessed from the road at a raised half level. The overall form consists of a long, deep block with a high hipped roof, returned at the ends towards the street with broad but shallow wings. The recessed centre features a deep projecting porch dating from around 1896, which encroaches on the pavement and has single storey screen walls on each side.

The main garden front is presented in two storeys with an attic in nine bays. All bays contain twelve pane sashes in plain reveals set to stone sills, with a slight break forward between bays two and three and between bays four and five. Bays six and seven are contained within a full height bow, crowned by an open balcony with a painted entablature featuring a dentil cornice supported on two slender Doric columns, carrying a conical slated roof to a lead finial with weather vane. The rear of the balcony is enclosed by a full height 20th century glazed screen in the plane of the main wall. To the immediate right of the bow is an inserted glazed door with transom light.

Around 1896, the top floor and roof with pedimented dormers were added. Two of these dormers contain tripartite four:twelve:four pane sashes, and one contains a twelve pane sash, all with slated cheeks. The front elevation is very austere, featuring a small plinth, cornice and deep blocking. The blocking is carried round the bow as the balustrade, capped with small iron railing, and a parapet continues round the whole building with a neat concealed lead gutter. Large ashlar stacks with cappings and blocking are positioned to the left at the ridge between bays two and three, and to the right of the bow, forward of the ridge.

The right return has a central eaves stack dividing a pedimented dormer with a twelve pane sash on each side, above two large tripartite four:twelve:four pane sashes. At ground floor level is a blind light and a modified tripartite with central glazed door. The left end features an entrance courtyard with a central tripartite dormer above two twelve pane windows at each level. To the left is an inserted glazed door, and to the right, in the re-entrant to a small projecting section, is a late 20th century lean-to porch with panelled door. The projecting section has a small square external stack.

The left wing facing the road frontage has a tall eaves stack abutting a half-dormer with twelve pane sash, above a blind light and a twelve pane, with a small light positioned low to the right. The three bay recessed centre contains nine pane, three:nine:three pane and paired nine pane dormers above two Diocletian lights and two twelve pane sashes, which are partly concealed. The right wing has a central eaves stack above blind lights, with one small light set low to the left.

The deep central porch features a moulded segmental pediment above a full entablature with triglyphs above paired pilasters to an opening with low iron gates. The inner paired door is three panelled. To the left is a tripartite sash with flush stone mullions, and the right side is plain, all set to an entablature with balustraded blocking. Original downpipes are present, and some hopperheads carry the date 1896.

The late Georgian villa was comprehensively altered by the noted late Victorian architect J.M. Brydon, who was then engaged in the rebuilding of Bath's municipal buildings. The result achieved a fusion between a late Georgian villa and a large hip-roofed house of Wren Renaissance inspiration, with a picturesquely conceived garden front which made the most of the house's spectacular hillside setting. The house was occupied by the Reverend Francis Kilvert from 1837 to his death in 1863. It later became the home of Lady Cynthia Asquith, an early 20th century writer and diarist, who is buried in Smallcombe Cemetery below with her husband Herbert.