page_title: Prior Park
section_title: Construction
hierarchical_section_title: Prior Park / History / Construction
caption_attribution_description: English: A Drawing of Prior Park, Bath by W. Wills after Thomas Hearne (1785) incorrectly showing 13 bays in the main house
context_page_description: Prior Park is a Palladian house, designed by John Wood, the Elder, and built in the 1730s and 1740s for Ralph Allen on a hill overlooking Bath, Somerset, England. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building.
  The house was built to demonstrate the properties of Bath stone as a building material. The design followed work by Andrea Palladio and was influenced by drawings originally made by Colen Campbell for Wanstead House in Essex. The main block had 15 bays and each of the wings 17 bays each. The surrounding parkland had been laid out in 1100 but following the purchase of the land by Allen 11.3 hectares were established as a landscape garden. Features in the garden include a bridge covered by Palladian arches, which is also Grade I listed.
  Following Allen's death the estate passed down through his family. In 1828, Bishop Baines bought it for use as a Roman Catholic College. The house was then extended and a chapel and gymnasium built by Henry Goodridge. The house is now used by Prior Park College and the surrounding parkland owned by the National Trust.
context_section_description: Ralph Allen, an entrepreneur and philanthropist, was notable for his reforms to the British postal system. He moved in 1710 to Bath, where he became a post office clerk, and at the age of 19, in 1712, became the Postmaster. In 1742 he was elected Mayor of Bath, and was the Member of Parliament for Bath between 1757 and 1764. The building in Lilliput Alley, now North Parade Passage in Bath, which he used as a post office, became his Town House.
  Allen acquired the stone quarries at Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines. He used the unique honey-coloured Bath stone, used to build the Georgian city, and as a result made a second fortune. Allen built a railway line from his mine on Combe Down which carried the stone down the hill, now known as Ralph Allen Drive, which runs beside Prior Park, to a wharf he constructed at Bath Locks on the Kennet and Avon Canal to transport stone to London. Following a failed bid to supply stone to buildings in London, Allen wanted a building which would show off the properties of Bath stone as a building material.
  Hitherto, the quarry masons had always hewn stone roughly providing blocks of varying size. Wood required stone blocks to be cut with crisp clean edges for his distinctive classical façades. The Stone was extracted by the "room and pillar" method, by which chambers were mined, leaving pillars of stone to support the roof. Bath stone is an Oolitic Limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate laid down during the Jurassic (195 to 135 million years ago). An important feature of Bath stone is that it is a freestone, that is one that can be sawn or 'squared up' in any direction, unlike other rocks such as slate, which forms distinct layers. It was extensively used in the Roman and Medieval periods on domestic, ecclesiastical and civil engineering projects such as bridges.
  John Wood, the Elder was commissioned by Ralph Allen to build on the hill overlooking Bath: "To see all Bath, and for all Bath to see". Wood was born in Bath and is known for designing many of the streets and buildings of the city, such as The Circus (1754–68), St John's Hospital, (1727–28), Queen Square (1728–36), the North (1740) and South Parades (1743–48), The Royal Mineral Water Hospital (1738–42) and other notable houses, many of which are Grade I listed buildings. Queen Square was his first speculative development. Wood lived in a house on the square, which was described by Nikolaus Pevsner as "one of the finest Palladian compositions in England before 1730".
  The plan for Prior Park was to construct five buildings along three sides of a dodecagon matching the sweep of the head of the valley, with the main building being flanked by elongated wings based on designs by Andrea Palladio. The plans were influenced by drawings in Vitruvius Britannicus originally made by Colen Campbell for Wanstead House in Essex, which was yet to be built. The main block had 15 bays and each of the wings 17 bays each. Between each wing and the main block was a Porte-cochère for coaches to stop under. In addition to the stone from the local quarries, material, including the grand staircase and plasterwork, from the demolished Hunstrete House were used in the construction.
  Construction work began in 1734 to Wood's plan but disagreements between Wood and Allen led to his dismissal and Wood's Clerk of Works, Richard Jones, replaced him and made some changes to the plans particularly for the east wing. Jones also added the Palladian Bridge. The building was finished in 1743 and was occupied by Allen as his primary residence until his death in 1764.
caption: Drawing from 1875 by W.Wills after Thomas Hearne incorrectly showing 13 bays in the main house
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