Gate Piers And Gates To Drive At Prior Park

RALPH ALLEN DRIVE 656-1/57/1361 (East side) 11/08/72

Gate Piers and gates to Drive at Prior Park

(Formerly Listed as: RALPH ALLEN DRIVE Gate posts to Drive at Prior Park)

GV II

Pair of gate piers with gates. Probably by John Wood the Elder, c1740, but see below. MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, wrought and cast iron. Rusticated piers approx 1.2m square and 4.5m high, on moulded base partially concealed by rise in surrounding levels, with wide moulded cappings and double blocking course carrying very large, horizontally moulded, urns. Outer face of piers inscribed PRIOR PARK¿ andCOLLEGE¿. Iron gates hung to stiles with modelled consoles, and have concave top rail, with twisted main and dog bars. HISTORY: These are the middle pair of the three pairs marking entries into the Prior Park estate off Ralph Allen Drive. The precise genesis of these piers in unclear. They are identical with those at south end of Ralph Allen Drive (qv), at junction with North Road, but the entrance they presently flank was only formed in 1836 as part of the works undertaken for Bishop Baines and overseen by H.E. Goodridge: no entrance is shown on Thorpe and Overton's survey of c1762 in this position. They may well have been brought from elsewhere on the estate, or are possibly 1830s replicas of the c1740 originals. The piers are notable for the size of the urns which demonstrated the quality of Bath stone available from Ralph Allen's quarries and its ability to be worked on a massive scale. SOURCE: Gillian Clarke, `Prior Park. A Compleat Landscape¿ (Bath 1987), 66.

Listing NGR: ST7602363037