6 The Old House, The Hill, Freshford, Bath

The Old House is a Grade II mid-18th century house, now subdivided into residential flats, situated within the Freshford conservation area, Bath Green Belt, and Cotswolds AONB. It forms part of the setting to the Grade II mid-18th century former coach house attached at the rear of the building which has since been converted to residential use. The Old House maintains a prominent, elevated position within Freshford’s local streetscape, although its frontage is somewhat screened in close-up views by yew hedge planting. However, the symmetrical emphasis of its Bath stone ashlar frontage and hipped roof profile set behind a high parapet with inset panel detailing is particularly visible on the north-west approach sloping down from the junction with the high street.

The principle of the replacement of a significantly rotted window frame is acceptable, and we note that the proposals make the effort to salvage as much historic fabric as possible including "the glazing with lead detail / metal handles / latches and existing metal casement openers". It is important that any replacements should be like-for-like in scale, profile, and finish, but this is currently difficult to ascertain without being able to see the location and current condition of the bedroom window as existing which is not currently annotated on any available plans or photographs. We recommend that further details of the window as existing and its position on the building would be helpful to inform further assessment of the proposals.