Old Park House (Annexe Of Roundway Hospital)

Old Park House (Annexe of Roundway Hospital), Harmoor Road

A circa 1820-30 mansion in neo-classical style, built of Bath stone and standing two tall storeys on a slightly projecting plinth. The building was enlarged and its interior substantially altered in the 1930s and more recently. It features a block sill course to the first floor, panelled block cornice, parapet and moulded coping throughout.

The entrance front faces west and displays an unusual and accomplished elevation. The centrepiece is concave, while the outer bays are splayed at an acute angle, extending beyond the main body of the building in an arrow-head formation. The outer bays have recessed flanking strips and broad, shallow piers either side of the centre, with the sill course, cornice, parapet and coping breaking forward over them.

At first floor level, the concave centre contains a recessed tripartite window that curves with the wall. The centre light is a French casement with marginal glazing, flanked by recessed pilaster strips with fluted brackets supporting a recessed frieze and projecting cornice. The sill course extends beneath the side lights. Blind round-headed niches flank the window on either side. The ground floor repeats this design, with similar niches and a double door with six geometric panels set in a tripartite frame, topped by a rectangular fanlight with two circular panes. A concave Doric portico on a shallow plinth with a bowed step to the centre extends in front, following the line of the wall. The portico entablature has a panelled frieze and the cornice returns on the wall as a stringcourse, with a blocking course above carrying a delicate diamond-pattern wrought iron balcony with lead rosettes.

The angled flanking bays each contain two recessed sash windows with glazing bars and block sills at ground floor level. A rectangular bay in Bath stone has been added to the ground floor on the right side, with plinth, block cornice and small parapet with moulded coping, containing one sash window on each side with glazing bars and block sills. The front window of this bay retains its upper sash but has been converted to a door below. All windows on the outer bays have fretted blind cases, and their return fronts to the main block feature blind windows.

The south front has a centre block of four similar sash windows. The ground floor has been altered to a sun lounge but retains Bath stone base, pilasters and cornice on the left side, with an attractive French window with marginal glazing and pointed upper panes. This front is splayed out again towards the east but with altered fenestration.

An east wing was added in 1937 with a rendered front and fenestration in the same style as the original.

The interior has been substantially altered since the building's use as an Old Peoples Home. The present Reading Room contains a fine early 19th-century mantlepiece with anthemion mouldings framing the mantle, which features a centrepiece of a lyre and flutes entwined with ribbons. The side sections are decorated with delicate vases and urns draped and linked by swags between dentil and egg-and-dart mouldings. The fireplace itself is entirely lined with 18th-century blue and white figurative Dutch tiles. The present Dining Room has a shallow apsed end to the south-west and round-headed niches either side of the fireplace. The original frieze displays delicate mouldings of swag and urn type with scrollwork.