Records relating to property owned or administered by Bath City Council and Bath...

Bath City Council has been the major owner of property in the city for many centuries. The records in this sub-fonds relate to the acquisition, ownership and management of this property by the Council, although a small number of the earliest records relate to the property of individuals who lodged their records with the Council for safe-keeping.

The records include excellent collections of surveys, deeds, rentals, plans and correspondence relating to about 80% of the property within the city walls as well as some outside the walls and further afield. Bath Corporation deliberately developed a property portfolio from a very early date and by 1600 it held property in its own right and as a charity trustee. Over the next four centuries it consolidated and expanded its property holdings, and remains a major property owner today.

From the 1279 Statute of Mortmain until powers were granted to it in the 1590 Charter of Elizabeth I, the Corporation was prevented from purchasing property itself. However, it was able to lease many properties from the city's priory, affording it control over their sub-letting and development. It retained these holdings after the Reformation, leasing them from the Crown estate.

Despite the limitations on its ownership of property, the Council put great effort into finding ways to hold and control city property during the 16th century, up to and beyond what was legal. For example, it arranged for property to be purchased by two men (William Sherston and John Sachfield) who were in reality buying it not as private individuals but on behalf of the Council. By the end of the 16th century the Council was responsible for about four-fifths of the property in Bath, including the hot baths, either as the owner of the freehold or as a charity trustee, for example of King Edward's School. In its role as trustee of the lands owned by St John's Hospital, the corporation controlled much of the coal mining operation in Timsbury, Littleton, Paulton and Hallatrow.

Over the succeeding centuries, the pace of development of the corporation's property portfolio was uneven. At times the Corporation adopted a passive approach, as in the first half of the eighteenth century, when it resisted development within the city walls; at other times it was active in developing the property it owned. In the second half of the eighteenth century, for example, the North and South gates of the city were demolished, residential houses were developed at Bladud's Buildings, the new Guildhall was built, and modernisation of the decayed city centre began. The Corporation also released parcels of land for development immediately outside the city.

From the mid nineteenth century, legislation allowed the Council to raise loans and buy property for a range of civic purposes, and - from late nineteenth century - the power to compulsorily purchase property and build houses for the working classes. The Art Gallery and Reference Library were built in 1897; at the same time the Council began to take more active responsibility for the housing of its inhabitants, becoming a pioneer in the provision of council housing. The Dolemeads area was one of the first to be redeveloped, together with Avon Street and Lampards buildings.

The interwar period of the twentieth-century saw the Council building major housing developments. Towards the end of the century it created fewer of its own developments, instead selling or leasing property to the commercial sector, or, as was the case with the creation of the new Thermae Bath Spa, it worked in partnership with the private sector. At the same time, almost all the council housing estate was transferred either to private ownership or to housing associations.

This description has been compiled using the following sources:
Graham Davis and Penny Bonsall, 'A History of Bath - Image and Reality' (Lancaster, 2006)
Trevor Fawcett , 'Bath Administer'd' (Ruton, 2001)
R S Neale, 'Bath, A Social History, 1680-1850' (London, 1981)
John Wroughton , 'Stuart Bath' (Bath, 2004)
John Wroughton ,'Tudor Bath' (Bath, 2006)

The Records
The records in the sub-fonds form a very significant collection. There are static snapshots of the Council's entire holdings in the form of surveys, dating from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. Lease registers provide detailed records of the arrangements it made with its lessees as a landlord, whilst rentals record the money paid to the council in rent. Title deeds, mainly eighteenth to twentieth centuries but with some from earlier centuries, record both the Council's acquisition and disposal of land, from short-term to permanent. There are many plans, which were often created as appendices to leases, to define accurately the property conveyed by the lease. In the twentieth century, more detailed records of the management of individual properties began to be created, with one or more files per property recording transactions with lessees and the management of the fabric of properties.

System of Arrangment
The records in this sub-fonds are arranged as follows:

BC/6/1 Surveys, terriers and lease registers of property owned or administered by Bath City Council and Bath & North East Somerset Council
BC/6/2 Title deeds to properties owned by Bath City Council and Bath & North East Somerset Council, to the properties of charities administered by them, and to some other properties in Bath
BC/6/3 Bath City Council claims to the Central Land Board for loss in the value of property due to the local land development plan, with responses from the Central Land Board
BC/6/4 Drawings and plans of property owned by Bath City Council and Bath & North East Somerset Council
BC/6/5 Rentals (records of rent paid) of property owned by Bath City Council
BC/6/6 Files relating to the management of property owned by Bath City Council and Bath & North East Somerset Council
BC/6/7 Records relating to the maintenance of property owned by Bath City Council and Bath & North East Somerset Council
BC/6/8 Files relating to the management and maintenance of former Avon County Council property owned by Bath & North East Somerset Council
BC/6/9 Miscellaneous records relating to property owned by Bath City Council and Bath and North East Somerset Council
BC/6/10 Records relating to the maintenance and management of Council Housing owned by Bath City Council

Records in the following series have been catalogued in detail: BC/6/1/1; BC/6/2/1; BC/6/2/2; BC/6/2/3; BC/6/2/9; BC/6/3; BC/6/4/6; BC/6/4/7; BC/6/6/2. Records in the remaining series have not yet been catalogued in detail. Please contact the Record office for more information.

Related Records
Important information on the Council's property can also be found in other sub-fonds. BC/8 contains Planning and Development Control records, which will, in particular, have information on major projects. BC/2 contains Council and Committee Minutes and related records of Bath City Council and Bath & North East Somerset Council, including the Corporate Property and Planning Committees.