History of 14 Westgate Street
Originally built as a townhouse for the wealthy to take the waters, 14 Westgate Street is one of the few remaining Elizabethan buildings left in the city. The first tenant, Richard Gay was Mayor of Bath at least five times, as well as an MP, a coroner and other important positions at the time. In less than a century however, the wealthy decided to move above the squalor and pollution of the centre, preferring instead to start to occupy what are now Bath’s famous crescents higher up on the hills surrounding the city.
By 1694, the house is depicted as one of the cities principle lodging houses run by a Ms. Pocock, hence the name of our BnB today, Pococks Lodgings where the rooms are now named after other notable female residents of Bath. At some time over the course of the next century, the house was broken up further with numerous businesses being run from here and was certainly a vinters by the mid C18th, with the first known recording of The Grapes appearing in 1792.