Description

Queen Square is a square of Georgian houses in the city of Bath, England. Queen Square is the first element in “the most important architectural sequence in Bath”, which includes the Circus and the Royal Crescent.VisionQueen Square was the first speculative development by the architect John Wood, the Elder, who later lived in a house on the square.Wood set out to restore Bath to what he believed was its former ancient glory as one of the most important and significant cities in Britain. In 1725 he developed an ambitious plan for his home town:Wood's grand plans for Bath were consistently hampered by the Corporation (council), churchmen, landowners and moneymen. Instead he approached Robert Gay, a barber surgeon from London, and the owner of the Barton Farm estate in the Manor of Walcot, outside the city walls. On these fields Wood established Bath’s architectural style, the basic principles of which were copied by all those architects who came after him.DevelopmentQueen Square is a key component of Wood's vision for Bath. Named in honour of Queen Caroline, wife of George II, it was intended to appear like a palace with wings and a forecourt to be viewed from the south side:North side: Numbers 21-27 make up the north side, which was described by Nikolaus Pevsner as "one of the finest Palladian compositions in England before 1730".West side: the west side (numbers 14–18 and 18A, 19 & 20) was designed by John Pinch in 1830 and differs from Wood's original design as the central block is in Neo-Grecian style. Wood wrote that: