A rare photo of Ralph Allen's House, originally The Post Office. Built in 1727 he lived here in York Street before he had his magnificent mansion on the hill built in Prior Park. This view is from an old postcard undated.
Now only visible when peeping through a narrow alleyway to the side of The Huntsman Pub. Although the pictures below - maybe painted ? seem to have a pretty path leading to it.
Ralph Allen (1693 – 29 June 1764) was a British entrepreneur and philanthropist, who was notable for his reforms to England's postal system.
Born in Cornwall he moved to Bath and as the postmaster he made the system more efficient and took over contracts for the mail system to cover England to the borders of Scotland and into South Wales.
From his postal profits he bought local stone mines and had Prior Park built as his house to show off the versatility of the local Bath stone, using the old post office as his town house. With the architect John Wood the Elder, the stone he mined was used in the building work for the development of the Georgian city of Bath.
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