The Lansdown Crescent Area

Lansdown Crescent was designed by John Palmer and built between 1789 and 1793.

John Palmer designed the two wings, Lansdown Places East & West on behalf of the coachmaker, Charles Spackman, and they were built 1792-95.

Somerset Place was designed by John Eveleigh and built, intermittently, between 1793 and 1820. However, numbers 1 to 4 were never completed, though the foundations and basements of 3&4 exist.

William Beckford lived here for 20 years and built the bridge between Lansdown Crescent and Lansdown Place West.
Upper Lansdown Mews (ULM) provided the coach houses and stables for the Crescent, including those for Beckford. Beckford also owned: the area now constituting Dixon Gardens, using it as his kitchen garden; the terrace above it, which was the beginning of the picturesqueroute to his Tower at the top of Lansdown Hill, above which he employed Henry Goodridge to build an ‘embattled gateway’; and two grassy walkways, either side of his kitchen garden, one from his rear gate in ULM to the terrace, and the other from his stables in ULM to the same place.

In April 1942 Somerset Place and Lansdown Place East were badly damaged, and All Saints' Chapel destroyed, by bombing.

Local History (archive)

Lansdown Crescent Association contact for Local History matters (January 2018)
Sue Branfoot | Email

Bath High School history (16 January 2018)
Residents may perhaps be interested in local historian Mary Ede’s history of Bath High School pre its merger with the Royal School in 1998.
B&NES Libraries have 2 copies (click here for details).

Article from 'Survey of Bath and District' concerning possible ancient monument in the grounds of Hope House, 5 January 2018
Local historian Mike Williams has undertaken considerable research concerning a possible ancient monument, Sols Rocks, noted by John Wood the Elder and almost certainly in the grounds of Hope House. Unfortunately all traces of it are probably now lost, due to the recent and previous development works.
Mike has had an article on the subject published in the most recent issue of 'Survey of Bath and District', whose editor has kindly given us permission to publish it on this website.
Please click here to read the article.

An interesting document: Particulars of Sale of Chapel House, 1926 (December 2017)
Judith Pepler recently came across these Particulars in a legal archive. Before handing the document over to the current residents of Chapel House, she suggested that, given that it is no longer in any way confidential, it could be copied and made available, with suitable background notes, to LCA members and local residents via this website.
Click here to see it.
Mandy Shaw | Email

War Artists on Lansdown (May 2016)
In May, 2016, Lansdown was the butt of intense media interest when an unexploded bomb was unearthed in the grounds of Hope House, a reminder of the "Baedeker raids" of April 1942. Click here for the impressions of some of the war artists working in Bath at the time.
For more information, contact
Mandy Shaw | Email

Other Area Information (archive)

St Stephen's Millennium Green (January 2015)
For information on this fantastic local amenity or to subscribe to their news updates, visit http://www.millenniumgreen.org.uk/.
Don't miss their aerial view video.