Plans have been submitted to carry out repairs to a “handsome” building in the centre of Bath which has been falling into a dramatic state of disrepair for decades.
The old King Edward’s School building in Broad Street | Photo © Stephen Sumner
The former King Edward’s School building on Broad Street has been described as looking like it has been “used as an ashtray”, a dusty relic in an otherwise thriving area of the Georgian city.
Now, Samuel Smith Old Brewery has submitted a planning application seeking permission to carry out repairs to the Grade II listed building.
The famously idiosyncratic pub chain has owned the building since 1989, and this is not the first time it has submitted plans for it to Bath & North East Somerset Council.
Samuel Smith’s first received planning permission to turn it into a hotel in 2010. Although the planning permission has since been renewed and amended, the building has remained empty.
It is now on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register. But plans submitted this month are now seeking the green light to finally carry out repairs which had been mandated as conditions of earlier planning permission.
These concern repairs to the stonework and some of the windows of the old school building. While it is not clear how long this repair work has been needed, one of the drawings submitted with the application of the work planned was dated 2018 and another was dated 2006.
Two years ago, Bath & North East Somerset Council’s cabinet resolved to appeal to Samuel Smith’s to either make repairs to the building or potentially be forced to sell up.
Then deputy council leader Richard Samuel said at the time: “The owners of this building are not looking after it and it is on the national risk register and that is a disgrace for a city like this.”
He said that he walked past the building every day and had seen it decline, adding: “It looks like it has been used as an ashtray.”
Last year, a former pupil of the school who used to sneak into the empty building to train acrobats hung four signs reading “what a waste” across its windows.
Scott Harrison, of Captain Bob’s Circus on Weston Island in Bath, called for it to be turned into a circus school. The signs however were quickly removed.
Samuel Smith’s is well known for its strict rules against swearing or using mobile phones in its traditional pubs. The brewery has also been criticised by some for the number of unused historic buildings in its property portfolio.
You can view and comment on the latest application here.
John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporter
