Listed Building: PURBECK LODGE NURSING HOME (467698)

WEYMOUTH SY6778SE LONGFIELD ROAD 873-1/27/207 (North side) 14/06/74 Purbeck Lodge Nursing Home (Formerly Listed as: LONGFIELD ROAD Holy Trinity Vicarage) GV II Large detached villa, formerly vicarage. c1860. Designed by the incumbent, Joseph Cottle. Portland stone with ashlar dressings, slate roofs. PLAN: a complex gabled building in muscular Gothic, with detail as early Butterfield; the main range has 3 gabled units, each set back from and at right angles to the other, to a common span and ridge height, and a fourth range, set back to the left, beyond the main entrance porch on the W flank. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, with coped gables to saddle-stones and kneelers, and exposed rafter ends at the eaves. Windows are set flush, with stone mullions and transoms. The chimney stacks all have bold cappings and skirts in ashlar on coursed stone shafts. The street front, to the S, has a gable to the left, over a canted bay to stone hipped roof, in 1:3:1 lights to cusped heads. Set back slightly to the right with gable end to the right, is a one-bay range with a gabled half-dormer over a 3-light window and a sunk triangular panel with trefoil decoration above a 1-storey square bay to stone hipped roof, in 1:4:1 lights to ogee cusped heads. On the left return is a large external eaves stack, with gablet, and with a ridge roof back to the principal slope. A recessed square panel carries a shield of arms, flanked by the letters I C. Beyond this a 3-light window under a triangular panel as at the front, and a deep projecting gabled porch with plank doors on decorative strap hinges in a double-chamfered segmental-pointed arch; the inner door is 4-panel, part-glazed, in a single-chamfered arch. Beyond is the offset gabled range, with eaves and rear gable stacks, and 2-light cusped lights at each level. On the flank wall is one half-dormer, beyond the stack. The right-hand end has a gable above a square vent, and 2 wide-spaced single lights over one single light, all to ogee-cusped heads, the upper lights having decorative iron casements. Slightly set back, to the right, the wing has a half-gable light above a segmental-pointed doorway, and across the whole of its width a 4-bay timber pentice gallery on posts to cusped braces, a deep bracket at the left-hand end with a carved angel, and tiled roof; this is raised on a platform with stepped approach to the doorway. The rear gable has a canted bay with hipped stone roof, and there is a further half-dormer on the recessed wing. 2 further stacks to the wing with the gallery. INTERIOR: not inspected. This is a striking building of considerable richness, yet overall a strong design sense. The amateur designer must have drawn on good advice, or had access to current engraved sources for his detail. Externally it is practically unaltered, but the casements may have been more decorative, as on the E gable. Listing NGR: SY6766678134

Record last edited

Sep 28 2009 12:11PM