Details
SUMMER LANE, Combe Down
(South side (off))
656-1/71/2007
De Montalt Works (South Range)
05/08/75
GV II
Workshops, apprentice shop, stores and coach-house to paper mill. Early C19 (the mills date from 1804-1805), possibly incorporating some earlier fabric.
MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, random stone, slate and pantile roofs.
PLAN: In three parts, joined by section of boundary wall. Approx 6m south of main works (qv).
EXTERIOR: Small two storey gabled building with slate roof may formerly have been attached, toothed ends to walls. Gable towards works has one door at upper level above two blocked doorways, to north-west two first floor openings, and full height stub wall, with sockets for first floor joists, and far side has two fifteen-pane sashes above door. Outer gable coped, and has corner stack, from this end coped ashlar wall approx 2.5m high, with central opening, links to two storey workshop building, running south-west, parallel with main works. Stone ground floor, and upper floor with wide-spaced timbers and ashlar block fill in three bays, with continuous row of four-pane casements, and pantile roof, swept down, in double Roman tile, over wide extension to rear. Ground floor has sundry doors and openings under deep flitch lintel, and wide piers with capitals, formerly open shed. Attached in-line at right hand end lower gabled range, possibly former farm building, in rubble with corrugated iron roof. Two square eaves lights above wide pair of plank doors to carriage opening, smaller door and paired light. Outer gable plain, with ventilation slit. Rear swept-down range continues across rear, and has horizontal boarding to framing.
INTERIORS: Not inspected. Now in poor condition.
HISTORY: Site passed from the Prior Park Estate in 1779 on the marriage of the Baron de Montalt to Ralph Allen's niece; the 2nd Baron (subsequently Viscount Hawarden) founded a paper mill here in 1805. Operated by the firm of Bally, Ellen and Steart, it originally produced high quality writing paper and sketching paper (used By Turner, Constable and the leading artists of the day), as well as for bank-notes issued by provincial banks; by 1834 it was producing gutta percha. Paper-making was subsequently removed to Wookey Hole. It was formerly noted for its overshot wheel, 56ft in diameter, fed by large pipe on pylons, from reservoir to north-west. Two pylons remain to north of building at east end, in good ashlar work, tapering from approx 1m square bases, and approx 5m high, forming piers at entrance to adjacent cottages. The site became a furniture factory in the later C19, operated by John Whitaker. Despite being in poor condition, the site forms a highly interesting group, possessing both architectural and industrial archaeological value, set on the southern edge of Bath in the heart of dramatically falling countryside.
SOURCES: Bath Evening Chronicle, July 24th 1948, 12; R. Atthill, 'Old Mendip' (1964), 56-7; R.A. Buchanan, 'The Industrial Archaeology of Bath' (1969), 15; Peter Addison, `Around Combe Down¿ (1998), 93-94.
Listing NGR: ST7621161973
