Nelson Place West

A drawing of the intended facade for Nelson Place, dated 1807.

Nelson Place, which was named after Admiral Nelson, was part of a larger development that also included Nile Street (named after the Battle of the Nile, one of Nelson's victories) and Norfolk Crescent (the centrepiece of the development, named after Nelson's home county).[2] The architect who designed the matching facades of Nelson Place and Norfolk Crescent was probably John Palmer.[3]

Palmer's design for Nelson Place was a terrace of 23 houses, each 3 windows wide. The two end houses were to have ionic pilasters and the central houses were to have a pediment, identical to the facade of Norfolk Crescent. The terrace was to be completely level, but the ground slopes down towards the river (at the west end of the row) so the street would have been built up on vaults, as at the south end of Norfolk Crescent. Each house was five storeys high (basement, ground floor, piano nobile, second floor and attic). Unlike many other Bath houses, the attic windows are in the main facade, not in the roof. This makes the building look taller and more impressive.

The first two houses (Nos. 1 and 2) were built in the early 19th century and completed c. 1817 but a financial crisis (resulting from the Bath Bank crash in 1793) meant that Bath developers were struggling to raise money for new houses.[4]

No. 2 (left) and No. 5 (right) Nelson Place, showing the reduction in width from Palmer's design (left) to Pinch's design (right).

Nos. 1 and 2 Nelson Place were first leased c. 1817,[5] but it was no easy task to raise funds for the other planned 21 houses in the terrace. As a result, it was decided that the terrace could be continued with smaller houses. The new design, probably the work of John Pinch the elder,[3] had houses that were 2 windows wide, to attract middle class rather than upper class occupants. The ground floor window (which is larger than the others) and the door are offset from the upper windows. Pinch designed very similar terraces elsewhere in Bath, such as Raby Place (Bathwick Hill). Four houses (Nos. 3–6) were built in this style and completed c. 1827[6] and a further two houses (Nos. 7 and 8) were built slightly later and completed c. 1835.[7] By this time the demand for town houses was dropping and no more houses were built in Nelson Place.

The Georgian terrace was left uncompleted and in the second half of the 19th century a row of Victorian terraced houses called Nelson Villas was built at the west end of the street. These houses, two storeys high with front gardens, are very different to the Georgian terrace with its tall imposing facade.

Palmer's plan for Nelson Place (top) compared with the terrace that exists today (bottom).

In the 1970s a modern block of flats (Nelson House) was built in the gap between the Georgian and Victorian terraces.[3] As part of this block of flats a single house (No. 9) was added to the end of Nelson Place, with a facade matching No. 1. This pilastered end house lends the Georgian terrace visual symmetry and gives the false impression that the truncated Georgian terrace was the intended final form of the street.

Today Nos. 1 and 2 have been combined into a single house, which contains flats. The door to No. 1, which faced onto Nile Street, has been replaced with a window and the staircase inside No. 1 has been removed, so the flats in both houses are accessed via the door and staircase of No. 2. Nos. 3 and 4 have also been combined for conversion into flats, the door and staircase of No. 3 having been removed. The outline of the old doorways to No. 1 and No. 3 can still be made out.[8]