Listed Building: THE OLD RECTORY, WITH BOUNDARY WALLS (381995)

PORTLAND SY6873 OLD HILL, Fortuneswell 969-1/3/128 (East side) Nos.1, 1A, AND 2 The Old Rectory, with boundary walls II Rectory to St. George Reforne, later hotel, now (1991) three dwellings. C18 part includes symmetrical SE front; enlarged to NE and remodelled in 1825. Rendered and scribed, asbestos-cement slate roof. A long but compact hipped block set to high retaining terrace on north side. Two storeys and part basement; SE 3+1+2-windowed. Mainly 16-pane sashes, but C20 steel casement to ground-floor bays 1 and 2, and 12-pane sashes to ground floor, bays 5 and 6. Some early glass remains in first-floor windows. Centred to left half is good panelled door with fanlight in stone-cheeked porch to flat roof, then a mid-height stair window, and at head of intrusive C20 stair flight a C20 door. Two end and one gable stacks. NE front also 6-windowed: 16-pane sashes at bays 1/3/4/6, blind openings to 2 and 5; ground storey has various altered windows, including arched light to bay 5 with plain overlight to C20 door. West end has added one-storey unit behind stepped gable walls north and south. Main block has moulded stone or rendered cornice to ovolo finish, on which is set square-edged lead gutter as a blocking course. Interior not inspected. Subsidiary Features: To the SW, attached to the end gable wall of No 1, a length of wall in cut block, with an interrupted saddle-back parapet forming crenellations, rising c 1.5m. After an opening, this returns, at c 1m height across the whole frontage of the property, continuing until it meets a range of C20 garages. A similar wall returns on the far side of the garages at an acute angle, running along the top of a retaining wall, all as the first stretch in detail. These walls are important in defining the historical site in an otherwise unstructured piece of townscape. Built as the Rectory to St. George, Reforne (qv), and enlarged to the NE in the early C19, the houses have a dramatic site on the scarp slope above Fortuneswell, and was bounded to the south, until its removal, by the Merchants' Railway. (Royal Commission on Historical Monuments: Dorset: London: 1970-: 253). Listing NGR: SY6887173106

Record last edited

Aug 18 2014 3:11PM