Some concern is being expressed about what is happening inside the hoardings that contractors have erected around the Assembly Rooms as work gets underway to transform the National Trust heritage property.
It looks as if paving stones in front of the building have been – either removed – or covered in concrete!!
I took this up with the region’s National Trust Manager, Tom Boden, who told me:
“As part of the Listed Building Consent, it was agreed that a protective concrete slab would be laid over the flagstones on the forecourt at Bath Assembly Rooms.
This will protect the surface from the cabins, deliveries and scaffolding that will be needed during the capital works.
Once the work has finished, the protective concrete layer will be removed and the flagstones restored, reinstating the forecourt outside Bath Assembly Rooms.”
Actually, one of the contractors showed me the plastic lining under that thin concrete layer and l have to say everything is being well protected.
Thank you for investigating
Thank you for taking this up. I walked past the other day and was aghast, and like you said what’s happened to our lovely bathing stones.
The policy of having Bath stone on pavements outside Georgian buildings has been quietly dropped elsewhere however. Wide tarmac strips on the pavement in Marlborough St off St James’s Square are one place this has happened, and others are mentioned from time to time in Fix My Street.