6-11, UNION STREET

Nos. 6-11 Union Street are six terrace houses, now used as offices with shops, designed by Thomas Baldwin around 1789 but constructed in 1806 by John Palmer, the City Architect at the time. The facades were rebuilt in 1870 by Wallace Gill of Browne and Gill, with the attic roof and shopfronts updated in 1991. The buildings are made of limestone ashlar, and the roof is not visible.

The long front of the terrace features slightly projected frontages at Nos. 7 and 10, framed by quarter pilasters at the re-entrant angles and at each end. Between Nos. 7 and 8, there are paired fluted Corinthian pilasters that support a full entablature above the second floor, with a pilaster to the attic storey featuring a sunk diamond panel above the paired pilasters. Each house has four storeys with three windows, all twelve-pane sashes set in plain reveals. The first-floor windows are highlighted with a moulded architrave and a cornice hood on pilasters with palmette capitals in the centre bay of each house. In bays five and fourteen, the windows are set in sunk square panels. The ground floor has full-width shopfronts from 1991, and above these, there is a stepped plinth to sill level. Each house features Baldwinesque paterae with husks above the outer lights on the first floor, while the second floor has a continuous thin sill band and a moulded cornice with a deep blocking course and parapet at the attic storey.

The interiors have not been inspected. The street, which is now pedestrianised, was laid out by Thomas Baldwin in 1789 following the Bath Improvement Act, but construction did not occur until 1806. Despite significant reconstruction, this section of the facades retains details characteristic of Baldwin, similar to the giant order pilasters found on Great Pulteney Street. The extensive rebuilding in 1870 was for Colmer's, a department store that competed with Jolly's in Milsom Street, and it is likely that Gill enhanced the façade in a revivalist style at that time.