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31 Marlborough Buildings in Bath
Marlborough Buildings is often overlooked by visitors to Bath by its impressive neighbour - The Royal Crescent, which is a shame as its appearance and position is just as impressive. It was John Wood Senior (1704-1754) who became famous for a number of works which included St. John’s Hospital, Queens Square, the Royal Mineral Hospital, the North and South Parades and the Circus. He died before the completion of the latter and it was his son also called John Wood who was to complete it and go on to design the Assembly Rooms, Brock Street and finally the Royal Crescent which was finished in 1775. Sadly when he died in 1782, aged just 54,he was deeply in debt, partly due to financial conditions relating to his fathers earlier building speculations. It was his wife, Mary and their daughter, Elizabeth who was married to the Rev. James Tomlinson who were to inherit his debts and few assets. Her husband had built the Royal Crescent on land that he had leased from Sir Peter Rivers Gay on an original ground rent of £220. He would have continued with his designs for terraces on the remainder of this land. Unfortunately, no designs have survived of what he intended to construct on it. On January 12th 1786, there was a large Auction of his former properties which included lot 7 which was described as “a freehold site being west of the Royal Crescent”, which was eventually to be the site of Marlborough Buildings. An advert in the Bath Chronicle at the time describes it as a vacant piece of ground intended and planned for building houses. It describes a small house lately erected at the north end. This had already been built by Jeremiah Chivers and is today the Marlborough Tavern. The lot reached an auction price of £1970 and was bought by the builder John Fielder with his associates, James Broom, Thomas King and William Cross.it was to be John Fielder who often describes himself as an architect who was to design most of the 33 houses that were to be built on the site in due course. Although nos. 13 to 15 are attributed to John Palmer, based on an identical frontage to bee seen on those on the west side of Green Park Buildings designed by him. It is astonishing to think that within just 3 years by 1790 the terrace was to be built and finished. John Fielder and his associates divided the long strip of ground which was not quite an acre into a number of plots on which they charged ground rents of between 9s and 12s 6d per foot, which equated to between £9 and £12 a property. They themselves had then to pay the owner of the plot - the Rivers Estate an annual rent of £220 that had been agreed with John Wood the younger in 1766.
John Fielder himself was one of the many builders and craftsmen who took on the leases and constructed the terrace. To finance this they would borrow from the bank or wealthy individuals. They in turn would sell them on completion to clear their debts and no doubt move on to the next one. At the rear of the row of houses were the Commons which at that time were fields. Although many architects had planned to build on them, they were never successful and it remains virtually unspoilt today with allotment and Victoria Park replacing them.
The early deeds that have come down to us for no. 31 Marlborough Buildings allow us to have an insight into how it was constructed. The initial document is dated 5th February 1788 and is the contract between Mark Fowles, the builder and John Fielder and his partners. Mark is described as a Tiler and Plasterer who was to have to pay a perpetual rent of £9.18s to them. It is very descriptive and explains exactly how it is to be built, although there was an opportunity to alter its interior. It has been difficult to find records relating to Mark apart from the fact at that time he was living nearby at 42 Rivers Street before moving to Murford Street. Fortunately, there are some early deeds with his signature on them. These relate to a mortgage for £600 that he received from Miss Mary Ann Rooper on the 12th January 1790 to finance the project. Tragically he was never to see the completion as the next record we have for him is his burial at St. Swithins Church in June 1791. Miss Rooper herself was to die just 2 years later.
No.31 would have been completed by 22nd March 1792 as this was the date on the deed for its sale to Sir George Colebrooke by the trustees, John George and Richard Hewlett. Sir George would have been aged 63 at that time and was living with his wife, Mary and some of their children at the new built house. They had moved just a short distance from the Royal Crescent which had been their home for a number of years. Sir George’s life has been well documented in an article called the “Shah of Alum” by Stuart Boydell which can be found on the historyofbath website. It would seem that he had been an English banker, member of parliament for Arundel and chairman of the East India Company before settling in Bath. His speculations had caused him to lose a fortune and escape to France. On his return he endeavoured to pay off all his debts, which he had succeeded by the time of his death in 1809. During his familes long period of residency at no. 31 he was very active in the life of Bath and his name appears regularly in the pages of the Bath Chronicle.
Again, the deeds to the house are useful in that they give an insight into his life there. He was to pay Mark Fowles trustees £1225 for the property and take out a £900 mortgage with the Rev. Charles Daubeny to finance it. This gentleman is famous as being the first minister at the nearby Christ Church which he helped finance. The mortgage was only to be for a year as he later increased it to £1600, which he borrowed from the wealthy Woollen Draper, Arthur Jones. A deed for 1802 shows Sir George transferring the house to his eldest son, George who was residing at Woodlands in Lyndhurst at that time. After her husbands death in 1809, Lady Colebrooke continued to live at no. 31 until her own death in 1818 and was buried in the family mausoleum in Chilham Church, their ancestral seat.
Until we received the deeds to the house, we were completely unaware of the next owner and assumed it was his tenant, Samuel Lane. They showed that Hastings Elwin had paid £1775 for no. 31 from the surviving trustees to Sir George who were his sons James and Henry Colebrooke. There is a marvellous article on Hastings Elwin in the Geological Curator for December 2005 which is online. He was a founding member of the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution in 1825. Their building still stands today in Queens Square and provides a venue for a number of exhibitions and talks during the year. It is there that you can see a bust of the gentleman.
Although Hastings Elwin may never have lived at no.31 he did reside nearby in St. James Square and rented the house to Samuel Lane and his family. This gentleman would have already been renting the house when he moved in shortly after the death of Lady Colebrooke in 1818. He would have been aged 69 in that year after a successful career as Collector of Taxes for Kings Lynn. Married to Elizabeth Mathew, they were to have 6 children, the most famous of whom was also named Samuel. He was to become a popular portrait artist and a number of those of his family can be seen in the Town Hall in Kings Lynn today. The Lane family were to reside at no.31 for the next 10 years before returning to King’s Lynn where Samuel was to die in 1835 aged 86.
There now follows a long chapter of ownership when in 1830 a rich widow buys the house. It is in that year that Mrs. Mary Marlow pays £1700 to Hastings Elwin for no.31. She was the widow of Michael Marlow, who had died in 1828, aged 71. He had been president of St. John’s College and Vice Chancellor of Oxford University as well as a Canon of Canterbury. They were to have no children and the 1841 Census for the house show her living in the large property, aged 60, with just 3 servants. She was to continue to reside there until her death in 1848, when the house and contents were auctioned. An advert in the Bath Chronicle describes in detail the contents of each room.
The story of the house now becomes really interesting with the next owner of the house. The successful bidder at the auction on March 14th, 1848 is Mrs. Anna Bourne. She is in fact a daughter of Samuel Lane who had lived there previously. It seems that she was living at the Circus in Bath in the year 1835, when her wealthy husband died in his 64th year and was buried in the Abbey, where there is a marble memorial to him. She pays just £1050, a drop of £700 on the price paid by Mrs Mary Jane Marlow in 1830. The census returns for 1851 and 1861 again show her residing in the large house similar to her predecessor with just 4 servants for company. She was to live to a good age of 83 before dying in 1869 and being buried in a fine tomb at the Church in Priston. There was to be a large auction of both the house and contents on February 10th whose description appeared as an advert in the Bath Chronicle.
The successful bidder at the auction was local solicitor, Henry Holland Burne who paid £1300 to the trustees, Mrs Harriett Hammond (sister) and Frederick William Lane (brother). We are fortunate that an early photograph can be found in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. Again, it was not until the deeds were studied for no.31 Marlborough Buildings that it could be seen that he and his trustees were the owners from 1848 until 1931. He in fact was to only reside there for 20 years. In 1890 he bought both 27 and 28 Marlborough Buildings, which were a short distance away and rented no. 31. He then instructed the architects, Browne and Gill to design three storey extensions on all three properties which still can be seen today. He played a very important part in the life of Bath during his life and reached the good old age of 81 before his death in 1911. He was extremely wealthy and left an estate of £215,000 - a considerable amount for those times.
The house was to be let for a number of years to a series of wealthy tenants. The first of these was in 1891 when Mrs Catherine Charlewood moved in with her daughter Mrs. Catherine Caldecot. Both were widows and the 1891 and 1901 Censuses shows them there with their Cook, Maid, Housemaid and Parlour Maid. It is on the death of the mother in 1904, aged 84, that the house is put up for sale. The lease is eventually bought by Colonel Charles Webster. The 1911 Census described him as retired aged 73 with his wife Mary who is 26 years his junior with their four servants. His wife continued to live at the address after his death in 1916 for a couple of years until her own death in 1918.
The house was again advertised with its contents in the Bath Chronicle on the 12th February of that year and sold to another widow, Mrs Emily Grafton and her daughter, Lilian. Her late husband, Frederick, had been a wealthy industrialist from Accrington where he had a Calico Factory. The 1921 Census described her as aged 90 living with her daughter, Lilian, aged 59 and 5 servants. She was to die three years later and her daughter was to live on until 1936.
It was May Butterworth who was to pay just £750 for no. 31 Marlborough Buildings in 1931. It was sold by Henry Burnes trustees who were Richard Higgins Burne and Ernest Wallace Rooke. May was living at 11 Miles Buildings at the time of the sale. The Street had gone into decline and the days of the wealthy residents had disappeared and been replaced with multiple occupants. The directories showed that a number of properties were completely empty. May only lived there for 5 years and was then bought for just £500 by John Charles Richardson who was there briefly and sold it in 1937 to Joseph Matthews for £650 who described himself as a Dairyman living at 79 Wells Road in Bath on the contract. He had a number of properties which he rented out. Judging from newspaper reports on various court cases that he was a ruthless landlord with his tenants. Directories show the house was split into a number of apartments. Bath was badly bombed during the war and the house received some damage. There is a letter in the archives that reveals that Joseph Matthews had claimed £125 for war damage.
In 1959 the house was bought by Giuseppe Cicerello and Domenico Toto from Joseph Matthews.
Domenico Toto the following year sold his interest for £385 to his relation Giuseppe Cicirello, who was already living in part of it. The Bath Record Office has a copy of the plans submitted in 1962 by Giuseppe for alterations to the rear of the building. He was born in Sicily in 1909 and was married to Angela Toto. He continued to let part of the property and this which was continued by his son Mario after his death in 1981, aged 72.
Finaly in 2022 the house was offered for sale by the Cicirello family after over 60 years of ownership and bought by Paul and Daria Mattingly and their family.
This booklet can only cover a fraction of the fascinating history of no.31 and as more information comes to light it will be updated and added to this website page. Neil Mattingly.
