That the original founders of Bath Street
regarded it as an important architectural feature of the city is
evident from the inscription in abbreviated Latin which was engraved
on the first stone of the street when laid:--
PRO
VRBIS DIG: ET AMP:
HAEC PON: CVRAV:
SC:
DELEGATI
A: D: MDCCXCI.
I: HORTON, PRAET:
T: BALDWIN, ARCHITECTO.
which may be read to the effect that "for the dignity and enlargement
(of the city) the delegates I. Horton, Mayor, and T. Baldwin,
architect, laid this (stone) A.D. 1791."
It is actually proposed by the new proprietors of the Grand Pump Hotel
to entirely destroy the beauty of this street by removing the
colonnaded loggia on one side of this street and constructing a new
side to the hotel two or three storeys higher, and thus to change the
whole character of the street and practically destroy it. It is a sad
pity, and we should have hoped that the city Council would have
resisted very strongly the proposal that the proprietors of the hotel
have made to their body. But we hear that the Council is lukewarm in
its opposition to the scheme, and has indeed officially approved it.
It is astonishing what city and borough councils will do, and this
Bath Council has "the discredit of having, for purely commercial
reasons, made the first move towards the destruction architecturally
of the peculiar charm of their unique and beautiful city.
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