Forest Pennant is a defining feature of the pavements and staircases over three levels in Bath’s new Milsom Place development that links a 1980s shopping area previously known as Shires Yard and a late 18th century neoclassical octagonal chapel.
The stone has been supplied by Royal Forest Pennant for the public walkways around an area that consists of 26 shops, four restaurants and two courtyards. The Pennant unites the new, £13million development with the traditional surroundings of the city.
Mixed colour paving with a sawn finish in 300mm and 450mm widths and random lengths was supplied to this project in the north of the city.
Commenting on the selection of the Forest Pennant for the project, Sarah Mansfield, co-founder and a Director of developers L&G Group, said: “Working very closely with Bath and North East Somerset Council’s historic environment team on what is a series of sensitive Grade 1 listed buildings it was agreed that Pennant would be the most suitable paving material for Milsom Place.”
Historically, Pennant would have been used as paving for footpaths and alleyways in and around Bath as in many other areas of the South West and Wales. Using it for Milsom Place allowed the developers to renovate the area sensitively, maintaining historic features such as the listed Somersetshire Buildings, built by Thomas Baldwin in 1781-83, and Octagon Chapel (recently home to the Royal Photographic Society) that was built around 1760.
Martin Blake of MBA Architecture said: “We were particularly keen to have a reasonably high level of variation in the colour of the stone to add a degree of visual interest in what is a significant expanse of paving surface.
“A sawn finish was chosen because, while we wanted a traditional paving material, we also wanted the style to complement the contemporary aspects of the development. We wanted to demonstrate that this intervention was a sympathetic evolution of the buildings.”
Existing, uneven riven flagsones were removed and the new stones laid on a continuous mortar bed. The 3mm joints between the stones were pointed using an EasiPoint gun-applied mortar.
Simon Hart, Director at Royal Forest Pennant based in Bishop Sutton, Bristol, said: “We are really pleased to be involved with such a high profile project that provides residents and visitors to Bath with a lovely new retail area.”
The Pennant stone is still quarried from the Forest of Dean using traditional plugs and feathers so the products meet the highest standards of environmental sustainability.
Royal Forest Pennant are also supplying paving for the £500million retail-led development of Cabot Circus in Bristol, where 1,000m2 of Forest Pennant large element bespoke paving have been supplied along with copings, dressed building stone and shaped stone to be incorporated into a water feature in the main square.