2-18, BROCK STREET

This terrace of seventeen houses connects the Circus to the Royal Crescent and backs onto Royal Victoria Park. Building leases were granted for numbers 2 to 6 between 1763 and 1767, and for numbers 7 to 18 between 1767 and 1770, with 19th-century and 20th-century alterations. The terrace was designed by John Wood the Younger.

The houses are built of limestone ashlar with double-pitched slate roofs featuring dormers and moulded stacks to the party walls. They are of double-depth plan.

Exterior

The terrace is three storeys with attics and basements. Some of the rears have attic storeys. There is a continuous coped parapet, modillion cornice, ground floor platband and plinth. The houses were originally designed with pedimented doorcases on engaged Tuscan or Ionic columns.

Number 2 is a symmetrical five-window range stepped slightly forward, with eroded cornice, moulded architraves to the upper floors, painted splayed reveals to the lower floor, and cornices and lowered sills to the first floor. It has plate glass sash windows and a projecting stone porch with Tuscan pilasters and a broken pediment over a set-back six-panel door. A sun fire insurance plaque is present.

Numbers 3 and 4 form a symmetrical five-window pair. Number 3 has six-over-six pane sash windows with painted splayed jambs: two to the second floor and two to the first floor with lowered sills. The left-hand first-floor window is Venetian with a similar window below. To the right is a double shallow enclosed porch of 19th-century date, shared with number 4, with cornice, blocking course and six-panel doors flanking two narrow central semicircular arched windows. At first-floor level there is a blind window over the party wall. A lead downpipe is positioned in the left angle. Number 4 is similar but reversed, with plate glass sash windows and a lead downpipe to the right.

Number 5 has a two-window range with plate glass sash windows. A tripartite window to the second floor right sits above a Venetian window with blocked top and painted splayed reveals. The enclosed porch to the left has a coped parapet and cornice. To the right is a doorcase with Tuscan pilasters and a five-panel door glazed to the top. A lead rainwater downpipe is present.

Number 6 has a three-window range with painted splayed jambs and six-over-six pane sash windows to the second floor, with a tripartite window to the right. Plate glass sash windows with balconettes and lowered sills are present at first-floor level. A mid-19th-century enclosed porch to the right has a coped parapet, cornice, and fish-scale pulvinated frieze on pilasters with Composite capitals flanking a moulded archivolt over double three-panel doors with oak leaf motifs to the tops. Semicircular arched windows are present to the returns.

Number 7 is a symmetrical three-window range with painted splayed reveals and some crown glass. Two six-over-six pane sash windows are at second-floor level, with Venetian windows to the outer ranges of the lower floors, balconettes and lowered sills to the first floor. A projecting pedimented porch with Ionic columns shelters a five-panel door glazed to the top. A Bath Sun Fire insurance plaque is present.

Number 8 has a two-window range with plate glass sash windows, Venetian windows to the first floor and ground floor left. First-floor windows have six-over-six panes and lowered sills. To the right, a porch similar to number 7 and others is infilled with a window. Numbers 8 and 9 are now one property, with the entrance via number 9.

Number 9 has windows to the right similar to number 8, though the first-floor sills are not lowered and the second-floor window has a balconette. The left-hand bay is covered by a 19th-century three-storey porch; the modillion cornice and platband of the terrace continue around it, with the coped parapet lower. Plate glass sash windows are present. The Venetian window to the second floor has a returned cornice at impost level, with triple semicircular arched windows with keystones to the first floor. Banded rustication to the ground floor frames a wide set-back bolection-moulded four-panel door.

Number 10 has a two-window range with splayed reveals to six-over-six pane sash windows: two to the second floor, with Venetian windows to the left of the lower floors. To the right is a nine-over-nine pane sash with lowered sill over a projecting porch with Ionic columns and a set-back five-panel door glazed to the top with an overlight.

Number 11 is similar to number 10 but in reverse. Plate glass sash windows are present, with lowered sills to the first floor and a similar porch linked to that of number 10 by a continuous entablature.

Number 12 has a two-window range with horns to six-over-six pane sash windows in splayed reveals, a six-over-nine pane Venetian window with lowered sill to the first floor left, and an enclosed pedimented porch paired with that of number 13 to the right. This was John Wood the Younger's own house.

Number 13 has a two-window range with painted splayed reveals and plate glass sashes to tripartite windows to the upper floors and a Venetian window to the ground floor right. The porch is similar to number 12.

Number 14 has a two-window range. The ashlar front has been renewed. Splayed jambs are present to the second-floor six-over-six pane sash windows, with a tripartite sash to the left and splayed reveals to six-over-nine panes at first-floor level, with a Venetian window to the left. A substantial mid-19th-century rusticated enclosed porch, formerly three storeys, to the right has a coped parapet and platband over a cornice with pulvinated laurel leaf frieze, moulded architrave to a four-panel door glazed to the top, and semicircular arched windows to the returns.

Number 15 has a two-window range with painted reveals splayed to the lower floors to plate glass sash windows. To the second floor left is a tripartite sash window, with a Venetian window to the first floor left with lowered sill and two horizontal panes to the lower sash. A similar window is below and a five-panel door sits in a slightly projecting pedimented doorcase with engaged Ionic columns.

Number 16 is a single-window range, stepped slightly forward and up, with plate glass sash windows to two dormers. A tripartite second-floor window and flat-arched Venetian windows are present to the first and ground floors. Lowered sills are present to the first floor. To the left is a notable Regency Gothick porch, very slender, with Gothick glazing to a tall overlight over a six-panel door. Triple colonnettes with foliate capitals and moulded bases are present to the front edge, and the doorframe is set with diagonal square paterae.

Number 17 has a two-window range with horned plate glass sash windows of six-over-six panes to the attic. A tripartite window is present to the second floor. Painted splayed reveals are present to two tall windows, with lowered sills to the first floor, and a flat-arched Venetian window to the ground floor. A slightly projecting pedimented porch has engaged Ionic columns and a five-panel door glazed to the top.

Number 18, the right terminal, is stepped up and has a three-window range with painted reveals. Two six-over-six pane sash windows are at second-floor level, with the left-hand window being tripartite. The first floor has a six-over-six pane sash to the right above the platband and splayed reveals to two four-over-four pane sashes to the left with original sill levels and small cast iron balconettes. A six-over-six pane Venetian window to the ground floor left has splayed jambs. To the right, the door and projecting porch are similar to those of number 17 and others, but painted. To the left is a lead downpipe with good bell hopperhead, and to the right BROCK STREET is carved into the platband. The west return has a central projecting bay, early Victorian in date, with traces of the former Venetian windows that this erased visible on either side.

Rear Elevations

The raised street level results in a lower garden level, ensuring that the basement is a lower ground floor to the rear. The garden fronts of the terrace, overlooking Royal Victoria Park, have many additions, notably attic storeys, balconies and balconettes, and a two-storey canted bay to number 9 with railings over. Some garden fronts repeat the Venetian windows of the street front, namely numbers 3, 4, 10 and 12. Number 6 has a four-bay garden front with a terrace at upper ground floor level. Number 2 has an irregular, stepped-back garden front with a pentice at second-floor level to the left-hand projection.

Interiors

Interiors were not inspected. A 1945 photograph in the National Monument Record of the interior of number 7 records double folding doors dividing the drawing rooms, Greek Revival plasterwork to the ceiling with rosettes, and a pair of marble chimneypieces decorated with bay leaf garlands. The interior of number 15 was recorded by Bath Preservation Trust in 1996 when returned to a single dwelling from a previous flats conversion: fireplaces were all renewed but plasterwork and joinery were largely original. An open string wooden stair has two columnar balusters per tread and columnar newels.

History

The south side of Brock Street forms an outstanding row of mid-Georgian town houses, situated between two of the finest architectural set-pieces of the 18th century. Its irregularities lend the row great appeal and contrast markedly with the symmetrical perfections of the Circus and the Royal Crescent.