43, Milsom Street

MILSOM STREET (East side) No.43 (Formerly Listed as: MILSOM STREET (East side) Nos 43-45 (consec, No.46, No.47) 12/06/50

GV II

Former house, now offices of Royal Photographic Society. c1765, altered 1980. MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, double pitched slate mansard roof with dormers and moulded stacks to right of house. PLAN: Double depth plan. EXTERIOR: Three storeys with attics, three-window range. Stepped coped parapet and stopped modillion cornice, eared architraves to second floor windows, first floor windows have lowered sills and moulded architraves, cornices to outer windows and pediment to centre. Plate glass sash windows, painted splayed reveals to first floor with `Circulating Library and Reading Room' painted on wall above, fluted Ionic pilasters flanking C20 door and blocked overlight to left and far right and moulded cornice and fascia over 1980 shop to right. To right good fluted lead rainwater head to lead downpipe. INTERIOR: Not inspected, but it is entrance to Royal Photographic Society gallery in old Octagon Chapel (qv). HISTORY: The house possesses a standard elevation, probably by Thomas Jelly; the 1980 shopfront (by Roy Worskett, of the local planning authority) may reuse part (especially the pilasters) of the early C19 shopfront. The painted advertisement is a fairly rare survival, and of interest. SOURCES: (Ison W: The Georgian Buildings of Bath: Bath: 1980-: 146; Colvin H: A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1660-1840: London: 1978-: 457; Deposited plans, Bath City Council: 1992-). Finch G: Shopfront Record, Bath City Council: 1992.

Listing NGR: ST7496165021