John Palmer (c.1738-1817), City Architect of Bath, was also co-proprietor of the old Theatre Royal in Orchard Street and of a new theatre on the south side of Beauford Square, completed by 1805. The drawings catalogued here suggest that Palmer was responsible for the plan and structure of the new theatre which was partly constructed when Dance (a friend of Palmer's - in 1793 he drew his portrait, now at the National Gallery) was asked to design the elevation to Beauford Square and the interior decoration for a fee, it seems, of £206.1s.6d. ([D3/8/7] verso).

There were three entrances on three fronts, of which only the then main one facing Beauford Square was designed by Dance. As built (and extant) it has nine segmental arches, containing doors and windows, extending across the width of the building. Above the five central arches is a two-storey block, its graduated windows separated by shallow panel pilasters; these are not incised but each is simply a vertical strip of wall between the windows outlined by mouldings. The frieze of the semi-elided entablature above is composed of festoons alternating with six masks that serve as capitals to the panel pilasters so that frieze and capitals are on the same plane, that is, a frieze capital. The festoons, though they span a greater distance, are quite close to those Dance drew at the Temple of Vesta, Tivoli ([SM D3/1/6]). The masks are of Comedy, Tragedy and Truth (the last very like a plaster cast in the Soane Museum, SM M1125) that the 1837 inventory describes as a 'Bocca de la Verita'). On the low parapet is a stone-carved Royal Arms and either side, set on plinths and centred over the two end pilasters, two lyres with laurels. The facade is closer to drawing [SM D3/8/1] than [SM D3/8/2] but simpler and without the first floor iron balcony and the tall statues on pedestals. The sculptured figures are placed on a single-storey base as were, for instance, the statues of the Four Continents in Dance's scheme for the Legal Quays, 1796 [D3/11/5].

Dance's auditorium was composed of 'three tiers of boxes, excessively lofty .... Cast iron bronzed pillars are placed at a distance of two feet from the front, by which the first row of each circle appears as a balcony, independent of the main structure .... The private boxes are inclosed with gilt lattices .... The decorations are very splendid, particularly the ceiling [with its] exquisite paintings by Cassali .... The wreaths of flowers etc., which connect these paintings are executed with great skill and taste. The walls are covered with stamped cloth, stuffed, of a crimson colour, and are papered above to the top of the boxes with paper of the same colour: an Egyptian pattern, fringed with a gold stripe .... The front is painted of the same colour, with four broad stripes of gold, and the centre ornamented with tasteful scrolls of gold' (The Beauties of England and Wales, XIII, quoted in Ison, 1980, p.92).

The Theatre Royal was opened on 12 October 1805 and redecorated in light green and gold in 1814. A fire of 1862 destroyed the interior and C. J. Phipps (1835-97) won the competition to rebuild it, adding an Italianate entrance to the Sawclose front as well as remodelling the auditorium and stage but retaining Dance's Beauford Square facade. It was to Phipp's design that the interior of the theatre was restored in 1982 by Dowton & Hurst, Dance's elegant rear facade also being restored.

LITERATURE. Stroud pp.205-06; Kalman pp.141-44; W. Ison, The Georgian buildings of Bath, 2nd ed., 1980, pp.92-3, 224; W. Lowndes, The Theatre Royal of Bath, 1982, passim; S. Kay, Theatre Royal Bath, history and restoration, Bath [1982]; C. Woodward, 'William Beckford and Fontihill Splendens', Apollo, XLVIII, 1998, pp.31-40.