Mayther, 3 Milsom Street

3 Milsom Street forms part of a Grade II Georgian terrace within the heart of the Bath conservation area and World Heritage site. Milsom Street remains a highly significant commercial streetscape, though originally residential, representative of large-scale Georgian town planning providing intentional sightlines into the city centre. Therefore, 3 Milsom Street’s value is largely derived from its aesthetic contribution to the wider conservation area and World Heritage site, and its architectural consistency throughout the rest of the terrace.

BPT is supportive of the proposed maintenance works to 3 Milsom Street. The window repairs and repointing of mortar joints will improve the appearance and material integrity of a listed building. However, we would ask how the building was permitted to reach a level of disrepair that now requires a significant scheme of remedial works. We continue to advocate for the regular maintenance and monitoring of historic buildings to ensure that small, surface-level issues are not allowed to grow into more serious problems that could result in the permanent loss of historic fabric.

With regards to the proposed replacement of joinery on windows 39 and 40, we wonder whether these windows constitute examples of original, historic glazing? If contemporary, we feel that this application could offer a positive opportunity for the replacement of the existing one-over-one sash windows with six-over-six Georgian-style sash windows to fully reinstate the aesthetic uniformity of the building’s street-facing façade.

We are additionally concerned regarding the proposed erection and fixing of scaffolding. Whilst we appreciate that the drill holes will be limited to the mortar joints, there remains some potential of harm to historic fabric on a highly visible and important frontage of a listed building. We suggest that less invasive means of scaffolding construction are considered as part of this application.