Argyle Hotel

The Argyle Hotel, located on Dorchester Street and incorporating numbers 13 and 14 Manvers Street, is a late 18th-century building, likely constructed around 1845, and possibly designed by HE Goodridge. It is a substantial block of offices, shops, and hotel accommodation, built in a traditional Bath classical style. The building is L-shaped, with a prominent quadrant corner deliberately positioned to face Bath Spa station.

The exterior is constructed of limestone ashlar with slate roofs. The three-storey and attic building displays a symmetrical façade of one-five-one-two windows, with predominantly glazing-bar sashes in moulded architraves. The ground floor features doors or display windows, with large panelled doors under transom lights, recessed between pilasters. A key feature is the quadrant corner, which incorporates ‘in-antis’ Ionic columns with Doric antae, repeated in the attic. These elements are unified by a full entablature, with a dentil cornice and blocking to the attic. Number 7, Dorchester Street, has a particularly wide bay with tripartite windows. The Manvers Street section continues a similar style, with pilaster detailing and varying window patterns, and includes a shopfront with flanking doors and margin-pane transom lights. Squared rubble is used for the return end of the building. The rear features a projecting wing with a range of sashes, and a setback central section.

The interior has not been inspected. Historically, the design shares similarities with the Royal Hotel on the opposite side of Manvers Street, together forming a formal gateway to the city centre, a development specifically linked to the arrival of the railway. The Argyle Hotel operated as a Temperance Hotel and previously housed a branch of W.H. Smith's on its ground floor. A painted sign, which read 'FAMILY AND COMMERCIAL HOUSE,' once adorned the building at frieze level.