Details
ABBEY STREET (West side)
No 2, Elton House
12/06/50
GV
II*
House, now house and shop. 1699, altered mid C18 and subsequently.
MATERIALS: limestone ashlar with Welsh slate roof.
PLAN: double depth plan, may originally have been pair of early C18 houses.
EXTERIOR: three storeys, attics and basement, additional part on left now obscured by the Crystal Palace Public House (qv). Basement has two casements in moulded frames. Ground floor has one late C18 six/six-sash in dressed stone surround to left of eight-panel door with two panels glazed, up small flight of steps. To right double fronted shop front of late C18 or early C19, bowed six by four windows flank part glazed door up small flight of steps, rectangular light over, continuous wavy fascia. First and second floors have six evenly spaced two/two-sashes of narrow early C18 type dimensions. Cornice, parapet, mansard roof with four dormers arranged one:two:one ashlar end stacks with pots, these roof arrangements, possibly originally handed pair. Rear elevation not seen, reported as having gable and early C18 fenestration.
INTERIOR: Not inspected, but see below.
HISTORY: The house is named after its mid C18 owners, Jacob and Elizabeth Elton. Of various periods and remarkably preserved, the site and house represent a microcosm of the changes undergone by the city itself from Roman times to the present. Excavations in 1981 revealed a Roman tessellated pavement, extending north from beneath the adjacent public house, and a medieval burial site. The ground plan is irregular and follows earlier boundaries, probably relating to the late Saxon church of St James, which was incorporated into the Bishop's Close in the C12. (This became the bishop's private chapel when a new church was built from 1279 outside the Close, the site later occupied by the C18 St James's Church). The front part was developed in 1699 as two houses, one room deep, by Edward Marchant, mason and building contractor. The shell of this smaller building remains in the basement and lower two floors of the present building. In the basement front south room is a stone range with a fine Baroque stone buffet with a shell hood set into raised and fielded panelling. An elaborate external doorcase in the front basement suggests a ground level rise to Abbey Green in the mid C18. In the early C18 north and south wings were added at the back. These have gables but late C18 sash windows. The north wing has good bolection moulded stone fire surrounds. In 1749, Bristol residents, Jacob and Elizabeth Elton, bought the lease from the Duke of Kingston, presumably as lodgings for visitors. Soon after, the recess between the wings was infilled with a staircase, simple but broad, rounded at the half landing for a sedan chair, but without a protruding rear bay. The heavy glazing bars are original. The street frontage was given an ashlar façade with plain surrounds. Around 1800, a double bowed shop front was added to the north east frontage and some further alterations and extensions were made to the stairwell and north and south wings.
In the C19, the area ceased to be fashionable and major alterations ceased. Donated to the Landmark Trust in 1982, the house was sensitively repaired with minimal intervention by Peter Bird of Caroe & Partners. The façade was deliberately left uncleaned.
SOURCES: E. Holland, `The Kingston Estate within the walled City of Bath', (1992).
Listing NGR: ST7509664680
