Listed Building record MDO11380 - Town Hall and Corn Exchange, 1 Market Place, Blandford Forum

Portland stone ashlar front. Signed "Bastard, Architect". The Town Hall is dated 1734. It replaced the former town hall, which was destroyed in the fire of 1731. The Corn Exchange to the rear is mid-Victorian in date. Portland stone ashlar front. Frieze. 2 storey 3 window front, enriched cornice and pediment. Draped stone vases to pediment and quoin parapets.

THE TOWN HALL stands on the N. side of the Market Place; it is signed and dated 'Bastard, Architect, 1734' in the entablature of the central window. It replaces the former Town Hall, destroyed by the fire of 1731, which stood on an island site to the south of the present building. The two-storied elevation is of Portland stone ashlar. On the ground floor is an open loggia of three semi-circular arches, with moulded archivolts and plain keystones on rectangular piers with lightly moulded imposts. A moulded string-course runs immediately above the arcade. The first-floor windows have moulded architraves, pulvinated friezes and foliate enrichment, and pediments, that of the centre window being curved; the sills are continued as a string across the elevation. At the top of the facade is an enriched modillion cornice of wood and a pediment with a clock in the tympanum; three stone vases complete the composition. <2-3>

<1> Ordnance Survey, 1:2500 scale, 1971 (Map). SWX1197.

(ST 88490631) Corn Exchange

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 1, 22 (Monograph). SDO146.

<3> DOE (HHR), 1973, DOE (HHR) Blandford Forum RD Dorset September 1973, 28 (Scheduling record). SDO17703.

<4> Historic England, Historic England Archive, 2K/07517 (Index). SDO14738.

TOWN HALL AND CHURCH

<5> Historic England, Historic England Archive, BF110930 (Index). SDO14738.

England's Landscapes

<6> National Record of the Historic Environment, 205502 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Feb 28 2022 9:19AM