8-20, Great Pulteney Street

Twelve terrace houses on Great Pulteney Street form one of the most imposing urban set-pieces of late 18th-century Britain. Built between 1789 and 1795, they were designed by Thomas Baldwin, John Eveleigh and others, following designs prepared by Robert Adam in 1782. The street itself was laid out on an unusually generous scale of 100 feet wide as part of the late 18th-century development of the Bathwick estate east of the River Avon. Leases were granted from 1788, though progress was delayed by the building crash of the mid-1790s, and it is recorded that No. 20 on the corner of Sunderland Street was offered for sale unfinished following bankruptcy in September 1794.

The houses are constructed of limestone ashlar with double pitched hipped slate mansard roofs, paired dormers and moulded stacks set to coped party walls. Each is three storeys with attics, basements and sub-basements, arranged on double depth plans. Each house presents a three-window range to the street.

The exterior is unified by a continuous modillion cornice, frieze and fascia that steps very slightly forward over pedimented pavilions flanking the centre of the terrace. Moulded string courses run continuously at second and first floor levels. Some houses feature a grand order of Corinthian pilasters. Windows are six-over-six pane sashes. The ground floor is treated with a platband moulding at its base over chamfered rustication with radial voussoirs to flat arches. The plinth is raised and fielded. Doors are eight-panel with large overlights.

No. 8 has trellised balconettes to the first floor and narrow pilasters supporting a dentil cornice on consoles with paterae to the frieze, flanking double festoons over a semicircular arched window with radial glazing bars at the centre. The door is positioned to the left. The upper windows of No. 9 are articulated by a grand order of four pilasters, with a door featuring an ornate overlight positioned to the left. Nos. 9 and 10 have a Vitruvian scroll band below their second floor sills. No. 10 has its door to the right. No. 11 is similar to No. 10 but lacks the scroll band. No. 12 resembles No. 8 but with the door positioned to the right. Nos. 13, 14 and 15, now the Carfax Hotel, have windows replacing the original doors of Nos. 12 and 15. No. 14's door to the right has a later ornate cobweb overlight. No. 16 has its door and cobweb overlight to the right. No. 17 is similar to No. 16 with a pilaster to the right. Nos. 18 and 19 form a five-window symmetrical pair with three windows to No. 18 and two to No. 19, flanked by paired pilasters to the left and one-and-a-half pilasters to the right. Paired doors with cobweb overlights are positioned at the centre below a first floor window with narrow paired pilasters and consoles supporting a triple-festoon frieze and pediment. No. 19 has balconettes to its first floor. No. 20 is similar to No. 8 and has its entrance in a plain seven-window right return facing Sunderland Street, with a Tuscan porch featuring a cornice, blocking course and dentil strip. A shallow enclosure to the rear of the porch has Tuscan pilasters flanking the door and a tall overlight with small windows to the returns. Blind windows appear in two left-hand ranges and to the second floor right of this range.

Interior details, where inspected, reveal fine original features. No. 12 contains an Adamesque frieze in the ground floor front room with a sideboard recess and an elliptical arch, together with a marble fireplace. The hall features very fine early 19th-century stone stairs with a cast iron balustrade on each step and an original deep frieze. The rear room retains its original fireplace. No. 13 has a fine white and brown marble fireplace. No. 18 retains a Georgian fireplace. The oval rooflight of No. 19 was previously a curved dome before the Second World War. No. 10A was partially inspected in 1994; early 19th-century stairs are believed to have been inserted when the house was subdivided in the 20th century.

Nos. 10A and 11 formerly comprised the Chesterfield Hotel, having become a boarding house in 1954 and a hotel in 1973 before returning to residential use as maisonettes in 2000. Nos. 13 to 15 comprise the Carfax Hotel. No. 17 was subdivided in 1963. Nos. 19 to 20 were united and converted to 7 units in 1983.

No. 14 retains the remains of a Gothic coach house in its garden.