Listed Building: CUSTOM HOUSE (412625)

POOLE SZ0090SE THE QUAY 958-1/17/187 (North side) 14/06/54 Custom House GV II* Custom house. 1781, altered 1814. Flemish bond brickwork with stone dressings and rubbed brick arches, ridge and a rear lateral stacks and a hipped slate roof. Mid Georgian style. Double-depth plan with principal rear first-floor room. 2 storeys and semi-basement; 3-bay front. Double-fronted with a basement impost band, moulded timber eaves, and the central pedimented bay set forward. Porch with Tuscan columns and entablature to double panelled doors, above a keyed, segmental-arched basement doorway with half-glazed door, and approached by symmetrical segmental curved stairs with wrought-iron railings. Round-arched basement and flat-arched upper windows, the centre first-floor window blank, with 3/3-pane and ground-floor 6/6-pane sashes. 4-window side returns both have basement doorways and blocked upper windows, otherwise similar with similar fenestration. Above the porch a cast-iron Royal Coat of Arms, restored c1990. INTERIOR: ground-floor altered; reported to contain a rear axial stair flight, and a roof with 4 paired king-post trusses, 2 on each tiebeam. HISTORICAL NOTE: the original Custom House was destroyed by fire in 1813 and replaced in replica; it was itself a rebuilding of the late C18 Red Lion Coffee House. The notable entrance steps were copied from the Guildhall (qv). The Custom House has a strong group value with the Town Cellar (qv) and Harbour Office (qv) on the old quay, illustrative of the old quayside, and forming the entrance to Thames Street. (RCHME: County of Dorset (South East): London: 1970-: 204; Gentleman's Magazine: London: 1812-: PT II, 478; Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Newman J: Dorset: London: 1972-: 321). Listing NGR: SZ0087290296

Record last edited

Apr 11 2022 3:38PM