Listed Building record MDO11270 - 18 Market Place, Blandford Forum

Built between 1732 and 1750 by the Bastards of Blandford, originally as part of the Red Lion Inn. Built of red brick with more recent inserted shop fronts.

(ST 88520628) Nos 18 and 20 Market Place were originally built as the Red Lion Inn, which now occupies a much smaller building behind. (See ST 80 NE 89). It was converted into dwellings and a warehouse before 1802. The structure appears on stylistic grounds to date from soon after the fire of 1731. It has a symmetrical N. front of three storeys and five bays, with a carriage-way flanked by shops on the ground floor, and a pedimented centre bay flanked by Corinthian pilasters in the first and second storeys.

Above the carriage-way the principal feature of the N. front is a pair of pilasters rising through two storeys to support an open pediment in which is displayed the inn sign, a heraldic lion in relief with a scroll in its forepaws, backed by an orange plaster cartouche. The pilasters have Corinthian capitals with reversed volutes and pendant acanthus foliage. The open pediment and cornice are elaborately modelled, with rosettes between foliate modillions and a leaf-and-tongue moulding below the corona. The S. elevation is of English-bond brickwork and has segmental-headed sash windows, except in the W. part where a wooden bay window has been added on the first and second storeys; the wall is capped by a brick dentil cornice. Inside, the building has been greatly altered. <1-2>

<1> DOE (HHR), 1973, DOE (HHR) Blandford Forum RD Dorset September 1973, 33 (Scheduling record). SDO17703.

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 1, 47 (Monograph). SDO146.

<3> National Record of the Historic Environment, 205521 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Mar 2 2022 2:41PM