Listed Building record MDO9794 - Top O'Town House, Bridport Road, Dorchester

A house built around 1835-40, with extensions to the north and west. The building has walls of brick covered in render, and consists of two storeys and attics. A striking feature of the front is the central doorway with an elliptical head and attached Roman Doric columns.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 1 (Monograph). SDO148.

'(157) Top o' Town House, on N. side of St. Martin's Road and facing the end of High West Street, was built c. 1835–40 and subsequently extended on the N. and W. It is of two storeys and attics, of brickwork, rendered, and has slated hipped roofs.

The E. front is symmetrical, in five bays, with a plinth, a plat-band that forms a continuous sill to the first-floor windows, a moulded cornice and a parapet. The central doorway has an elliptical head and attached Roman-Doric columns with entablature-blocks supporting a cornice projecting as a hood; the two flanking windows on each side are plain and the range of five tall windows on the first floor is fitted with cast-iron window-guards of trelliswork design. All the double-hung sashes have very thin glazing bars. The plan of the ground floor comprises four rooms of equal size, with a wide entrance hall and a staircase in the middle. The S.E. room has a fireplace with marble surround, the jambs having fluted shafts with paterae at the top. At the wall-head is a moulded ceiling cornice with an acanthus frieze. The N.W. room has a fluted cornice and plainer marble fireplace. The entrance hall is spanned by a three-centred archway forming a lobby at the front, and the staircase has a simply-moulded mahogany rail with balusters of square section.'

<2> National Record of the Historic Environment, 453553 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Aug 22 2024 7:43PM