7 St James’s Street, Lansdown

7 St James’s Street is a Grade II Georgian residential terrace situated within the Bath conservation area and World Heritage site. It forms part of the dense, Grade II listed frontage along St James’s Street, Marlborough Street, and Crescent Lane. Whilst the rear elevation is not publicly visible, it does form part of the architecturally-varied setting of multiple Grade II houses along the terrace, and any consequent visual impact should be considered in relevant applications.

In principle, BPT supports the remedial maintenance works proposed to the rear exterior of the property. Repointing and cleaning are small changes that can improve the appearance and functionality of a property by preventing water ingress or stone deterioration. However, we would request that details such as the proposed cleaning methods be submitted with the application to ensure that sensitive methods, such as low pressure steam cleaning, are utilised in order to maintain the health of the existing stone façade whilst preventing ‘over-cleaning’.

The Trust further supports the replacement of decaying windows, whilst retaining original detailing such as the wrought iron grille. However, the details of the replacement are ambiguous, and we assume that the replacement will be like-for-like. With regards to the replacement glazing, we feel that this could be an opportunity to implement slimline glazing in order to subtly improve energy performance and resident comfort, and would ask the applicant to demonstrate a full consideration of this potential option within their application.

We additionally encourage the natural ventilation of the vault spaces without reliance on impermeable methods such as tanking. However, we have noticed that the proposed soil pipe to be retained for ventilation purposes does not appear to have been clearly specified on the supplied floor plans or elevations, and therefore we cannot make a fully informed decision regarding the visual impact of retaining outdated services whilst adding new alternatives.

Finally, we have noticed that work has already begun on this application. We would like to remind the applicant that we discourage unauthorised works to a listed building, regardless of the proposed benefits or enhancements to the building.