A Bath property, which a widow had wanted exhibited to the public after her death, was instead used by the local council for almost 50 years.
Number 4, The Circus, which has been sat empty for a number of years | Photo © John Wimperis
Bath man Peter Scott, who lives nearby, said the property on Bath’s Circus had been “used and abused” by the council for its own purposes. Bath & North East Somerset Council said it had followed due process.
Number 4, The Circus is owned by a charity, set up after the death of its owner Frances Cooke in 1970, to fulfil her wishes that the townhouse be exhibited to the public for its architectural and historic interest.
But instead of being open to the public, the charity, whose trustees are appointed by Bath & North East Somerset Council, instead leased it to the local authority at a peppercorn rent for council use.
Mr Scott said: “There’s an obvious possibility of a conflict of interest here between the interest of the charity and the interest of the council.”
He added: “It looks to me that during the life of this charity over the last 50 years, the council has looked after itself.”
The charity has no bank account, and the trustees appointed by the council to run it were councillors.
Mr Scott said of the council: “I don’t think they are being fair because I don’t think they have ever really tried to fulfil the objectives of the charity in 50 years.”
The Georgian Garden at 4, The Circus | Photo © John Wimperis
Mr Scott started looking into what was happening with the building after becoming concerned about the “dilapidation” of the Georgian Garden, the free-to-access historic garden at the rear of the property.
After finding “anomalies” with the charity, he contacted the Charity Commission with his concerns in August, who provided the charity with “regulatory advice and guidance about good governance”.
In December, Bath & North East Somerset Council convened a committee to finally reappoint councillors as trustees to the charity, nominally with the intention “supporting the dissolution of the charity” — although the council technically cannot tell the trustees what to do.
A council report, which went before the meeting, warned that its use of the house had only ever been “tangentially compliant” with the objectives of the charity.
Although the garden was open to the public, the house itself was only advertised as open to the public on one day a year on Bath and North East Somerset’s heritage open days.
The report said: “In theory, members of the public could request sight of the interior at any time and would have to be admitted, although the ability to do this has never been made public.”
Although Mrs Cooke had intended it to be a Georgian exhibition house, the report said that in the 1970s, the nearby Number 1 Royal Crescent had recently opened for the same purpose.
Number 4, The Circus, which was considered too tall and narrow for use as a museum, was instead leased to the council. It was used as overflow space from the Museum of Costume and later sublet to Bath Spa University.
Mr Scott said: “It seems to me to just be a bit of a scandal really. They have used and abused [it] and are now asking to discard this charity. They have used it for their own devices for the last 50 years and now they want to get rid of it.”
He said the reasons given for not using the building as a museum were “specious”, given other museums in similar townhouses in Bath, and called for the council to appoint trustees who are not councillors and give them a chance to finally try and raise some money for the charity.
He said that Number 4, The Circus — designed by John Wood the elder but completely by John Wood the younger, who went on to design the Royal Crescent — could be used as a museum of the architecture of Bath.
Responding to the concerns, the council’s cabinet member for economic and cultural sustainable development Paul Roper (Kingsmead, Liberal Democrat) said: “The council has followed all due process in appointing new trustees, who act in an independent capacity, to the charity that owns No. 4 the Circus.
“It is up to the independent trustees to decide on the future of No. 4 The Circus.”
The council’s lease of the property ceased in 2019, and it has since stood empty, although the council has remained responsible for maintenance. This cost the council £18,600 last year, and it is projected to cost another £6,500 this year.
Separately, the council owes the charity a currently unknown sum of money for dilapidations the building suffered while the council leased it from 1973 until 2019.
A 2017 survey put this at £291,430 — but a new survey will now need to be carried out to bring the figure up to date.
Meanwhile, Avon and Gloucestershire Gardens Trust, which campaigns to save historic gardens, has warned that the Georgian Garden has become overgrown and has lost its original planting, the “hoggin” shingle it is meant to have, and a Georgian-style bench which had been recreated for the garden.
The trust’s vice chair Kay Ross warned: “It is gradually disappearing and it would be meaningless if the planting or the hoggin was not restored.”
John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporter
