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Here are a couple of my inexpert sketches. I really just wanted to see how well they came out...I plan to do more and better sketches, maybe using a ruler.
The point is that windows, throughout the main period during which much of today's Bath was built, were taxable items. From 1695 to 1851 tax was paid by householders, based on the number of windows their house possessed. This led to various designs for windows in order to evade paying as much money to the Goevrnment.
One way to pay less tax was to arrange the windows with less than a 12 inch gap between them - windows closer together than 12 inches counted as a single window, and the householder paid just once. In some extreme cases windows were bricked up - no tax to pay.
Builders sometimes allowed for this in their construction - offering houses with blocked window spaces which could be easily removed if the house holder was feeling flush enough to pay extra tax.
There are a great many blank windows in Bath - but many of them are not the result of tax evasion - they often simply hide fireplaces or staircases. The Georgian architects often included the outline of a window in a building's facade to maintain harmony in their design, even when it would never be possible to have a real window at that position.
More on windows soon - looking at fashions in windows, and how to tell if your Georgian house still has Georgian windows.
Last updated 21 February, 2001
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