Bath, of course, is full of good examples of town houses; but Bath was much more than a town to which the neighbouring gentry resorted for the winter. It was a fashionable watering place, and provision had to be made for visitors throughout the year. Some of its buildings have already been mentioned, but the accompanying engraving of Milsom Street (Fig. [211]) gives a good idea of its street architecture, devoted partly to residential purposes and partly to business premises. This mixture of dwellings and shops is still met with in old-fashioned towns, where the principal streets are made up of houses—some large and some small—interspersed with shops and inns. But in places where factories are introduced and the population increases, the universal tendency is towards the multiplication of shops and the diminution of houses. Every growing town experiences this change. As the houses part with their tenants, whether through death or otherwise, they are either converted into shops and offices, or they are pulled down to make room for tradesmen seeking the best situations for their business; the tradesmen themselves seek the cheaper and larger spaces of the suburbs for their own dwellings. The intentional combination of shop and dwelling, such as those at Cirencester (Fig. [216]) or Cheltenham (Fig. [217]), seldom occurs in the present day, when by-laws require for a house a certain amount of open space which can be more profitably used for business pure and simple. In the example from Cirencester the ground story, if not actually of the same date as the superstructure, has been skilfully designed to harmonise with it, and appears sufficiently sturdy to support it. But most tradesmen of the present day require so much room for the display of their goods, that they grudge every inch given to the purposes of support, and they would regard with equal disfavour the columns employed at Cirencester and the caryatides at Cheltenham.
Fig. 219.—Shop Front at Dorking, Surrey.
Needless to say, the little old-fashioned shop fronts with small panes are quite out of the question in the present day, except for a very few trades. They would fill a modern shop fitter with contempt, yet there is something quite refreshing about such a front as that at Wareham (Fig. [218]) or that at Dorking (Fig. [219]). The outward curve, according to the simple ideas of the time, brought the goods into prominence, and when as yet it was unnecessary for rivals to shout each other down, the modest depth of the frieze was sufficient to display the name and calling of the occupier. The delicate ornament in the cornice is in scale with its surroundings, but it would be out of place on the top of a sheet of plate glass two or three hundred feet in area, or surmounting a name board with letters two feet high.
Fig. 220.—Houses at Bristol.
Bristol still retains many interesting old houses, some dating from the early seventeenth century, and bearing witness to the wealth of its inhabitants at that period. These are to be found within a short distance of the quays, where the trade of the town centred. As the town spread further out more good houses were built, and there are still to be found in the outlying parts of the old town such houses as that shown in Fig. [220]. It has a handsome, substantial front treated with more than usual richness; but if the pediments over the windows and the pilasters were removed, the residue would resemble one of the ordinary plain brick houses of the time. That is to say, the ornamental features are merely applied, and have no vital connection with the structure. The house is set a little way back from the street, thus leaving a narrow forecourt, which is enclosed by a railing abutting at each end on a handsome stone pier; two similar piers carry a pair of elaborate iron gates in the middle of the front. The piers lend an air of dignity to the whole. In some instances, where a good house was built in a crowded street, it was set back some sixteen or twenty feet, thus forming a forecourt; and high walls were built at the sides of the court from the house up to the street, thus providing screens to mask the ends of the adjoining houses, which were built on the actual street front. There is such a case in Eastgate, Gloucester, but the forecourt is now filled with a shop, above which can be seen the front of the house and the screen walls. Nearly all our old towns retain relics of ancient grandeur such as this, but they are gradually disappearing before the march of modern improvements.
Fig. 221.—Houses in Bedford Square, London, 1780.
