070706.Bath, Somerset Place

July 6, 2007 at 6:49 AM | Posted in Architecture, Bath, Crescents, doorways, Light and Shadow, somerset, Walcot | 3 Comments

“Bath’s most unusual crescent of sixteen houses above Cavendish Crescent. Started by John Eveleigh in 1790, it was abandoned for financial reason and only resumed c 1820; the west wing has only five houses though cellars were built for two more. The central symmetrical pair, Nos. 10-11, dominate, with a big six-bay broken segmental pediment. The tympanum is carved with paterae and swags caught up by pegs, and reverse curves to the tympanum in the broken section meet to form a pedestal with a vase finial. The first floor has a central arched niche with an open pediment. The paired doors have Gibbs surrounds and icicle keystone masks and cornices on consoles that terminate in carved leaves.

“These houses were built as a semi-detached pair; they step slightly forward, and are not curved in plan like the winds. The flanking houses are simpler, three storeys, three bays; the east wind descends downhill, managing the slope with a tilted platband and cornice. The doorcases are rusticated and have cornices on consoles, some with unusual acanthus leaf keystones. Nos. 5-7 and 10-13 were gutted by incendiaries in 1942 and rebuilt for student hostels by Hugh D. Roberts, 1950-1960s.” –Michael Forsyth, Bath (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 171. Elevation from Walter Ison’s Georgian Buildings of Bath (1980).

posted by JosyC

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