10, Bathwick Hill

This is a detached villa, built around 1810 and altered in the 20th century. It was likely designed by John Pinch. The exterior is constructed of limestone ashlar with a double-pitched slate roof and moulded stacks to the gable ends. The house has two storeys and a basement. The front facing the street has two windows, while the front facing the garden has three. A coped parapet and cornice top the building, and the windows are eight-pane sashes, some retaining crown glass. A 20th-century door is located on the left side.

The symmetrical three-window garden front is the principal facade, featuring a returned coped parapet and entablature supported by a giant order of Ionic pilasters, paired to the outer ranges. Quarter pilasters flank the central range, which is stepped slightly forward. Large eight/eight-pane sash windows have moulded sills. A moulded ground floor string course runs between the pilasters. The first-floor central window has a cornice and frieze with a lozenge in the centre, supported by moulded pilasters. A semi-elliptical portico with two pairs of fluted Ionic columns supports an entablature and blocking course; its key pattern frieze features lozenges above the columns. The portico’s French windows have a cobweb fanlight.

The interior, recorded by the Bath Preservation Trust in 1990, includes a cantilevered stone staircase with a wide depressed arch from the hall, extensive reeded door architraves and six-panel doors, decorative plasterwork, and original fireplaces. The fireplace in the Morning Room features Ionic columns, lion masks, and a central relief of an urn. The basement is divided into six rooms and retains numerous original features.

This villa is considered one of the finest late Georgian suburban villas in Bath. The fine masonry front to the garden elevation indicates the houses were initially intended to be viewed primarily from the south, as the street front is comparatively ordinary.