The mid-1700s saw a building boom in Bristol, and Clifton was considered the most fashionable of addresses. Beautiful and exclusive developments of terraces and squares began to advance up the hill from the city. By the mid 1780s 'building mania' was raging and speculators were drawn by the prospect of making huge profits.

For a while things went well and it was said in Felix Farley's Journal in 1791 that so great was the spirit of building in the city and its environs that ground has been taken for 3000 houses. It was at this point that James Lockier began the construction of one of Bristol's most beautiful rows of houses, Royal York Crescent.

However, the outbreak of war with France in 1793 caused widespread financial panic and in Bristol many speculative developers including Lockier were ruined. More than 500 houses, destined to be the most grand and impressive of buildings were left in an unfinished state of increasing dereliction for many years prompting Mr Malcolm, the historian of London to describe:

'the silent and falling houses of Clifton and the tottering ruins in Portland Square as the most melancholy spectacle within his recollection.'

John Latimer, Annals of Bristol in the Eighteenth Century