Details
QUEEN SQUARE
656-1//40/2448 (East side)
No.4 ('Alfred Hopkins House') with railings (Formerly Listed as: QUEEN SQUARE (East side) Nos 1A, 1-4 (consec) & 4A)
12/06/50
GV I
Large house, now offices, in group in square. 1729-1734, by John Wood the Elder.
MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, slate roof.
PLAN: Grand symmetrical wide-frontage house in group of six on east side of square.
EXTERIOR: Three storeys, attic and basement, five windows, all restored glazing bar sashes, three small twelve-pane dormers above nine-pane in eared architraves to second floor, twelve-pane in architraves, to sill band, and with cornice hood on pulvinated frieze at first floor, sills are raised to original level. At ground floor twelve-pane in splayed surrounds. Wide central seven-panel door, top panel glazed, in pilasters with shaped consoles, and open pediment, with sunk panel to frieze. Basement has drip course, above ground floor, platband. Modillion cornice with shallow blocking course and parapet, low mansard roof with coped party divisions and ashlar stacks.
INTERIOR: Not inspected. In use as offices.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Basement areas are enclosed by simple cast iron railings on ashlar curb returned at doorway and to right, with steps to basement. Building set slightly lower than No.3 (qv), because of slope in street, also stepped forward very slightly (c100mm). Replacement of glazing bars presents house much as Wood intended.
HISTORY: These houses were the first built of the Wood development. John Wood leased the site from Robert Gay from 1728 onwards, and granted underleases in 1729-1731 to a range of developers, and the houses are first recorded as occupied in the rate books in 1734. Wood originally intended to level the sloping site, but this was abandoned on the grounds of cost. Queen Square is of exceptional importance as the first large scale instance of town planning to arrive at Bath. Wood drew on precedents in contemporary London house building and, through the courageous and skilful pursuit of his vision, created a monumental ensemble on a fresh sloping site some distance to the west of the former city walls. Each side of the square forms a symmetrical composition, but none of the sides are alike. Queen Square forms the earliest, and lowest, element in the sequence of set-pieces by the Woods which culminates with the Royal Crescent.
SOURCES: Tim Mowl and Brian Earnshaw, 'John Wood. Architect of Obsession' (1988), 65-86; Walter Ison, 'The Georgian Buildings of Bath' (2nd ed. 1980), 115-120, 226-28.
Listing NGR: ST7484864988
