Tontine Buildings

TONTINE BUILDINGS, STOURPORT ON SEVERN

Former canal hotel and lodgings, now disused. Built around 1772 by the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal Company, possibly designed by Thomas Dadford, the company's engineer. The building is constructed of red brick with Welsh slate roofs.

The structure follows an E-shaped plan with three storeys and three wings to the rear. The main southwest elevation contains seven bays with a central doorway set within a gabled brick porch added around 1870. The porch is flanked by Palladian windows with stuccoed heads featuring channelled voussoirs and keystones. The outer bays contain paired doors and windows providing access to originally separate lodgings. The side elevations each contain two additional single-bay units. All doorways are fitted with six-panelled doors in wooden architraves with fluted shafts and console brackets to the entablature. Windows throughout are three-light casements with stuccoed flat arched heads and channelled voussoirs. A stuccoed eaves band decorates the front elevation, with dentils present on the side and rear elevations. Symmetrical axial chimney stacks are arranged two to the left and right, with one on each wing. Later flat-roofed infill extensions between the rear wings have no architectural significance.

The interior retains a variety of original features. All original casement windows survive with moulded mullions and lamb's tongue glazing bars, many with original shutters. The ground floor preserves original black and red chequerboard quarry tiles. The roof structure is predominantly original with the addition of later rafters and steel tie rods, though the second floor ceiling was removed during roof repairs. Internal partition walls survive to full height. The lodgings retain most original internal fittings including timber panelled doors, some with over-lights featuring elliptical glazing bars, skirting boards, and original dogs-leg staircases. Lodging number two contains particularly fine features including a glass cupboard with niche head and doors with shaped shelves, and a splat baluster handrail to the upper staircase. Many original fireplaces remain in situ with eared architrave fire surrounds and ducks-nest gratings; some cast iron fireplaces bear the insignia of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal Company.

The former hotel premises, converted to a public bar, retains enough of its original ground plan to be traceable, and preserves a high-quality staircase with pairs of turned column and vase balusters, carved tread ends, and ramped and swept handrail. Matching ramped and swept dado rail and panelling survive in the stairwell. The first floor retains the original layout of the canal company boardroom, which also served as a ballroom, along with other offices. The cellars contain a series of barrel-vaulted brick arches, some with access to chutes for goods delivery. Several brick fireplaces with cooking ranges and water-boiling facilities, including coppers, remain, as do brick-built tanks relating to a rainwater collection system that provided fresh water for domestic consumption.

The Tontine Hotel, originally known as the Areley Inn, was constructed as a centrepiece to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal Company's enterprise at Stourport. The canal, engineered by James Brindley between 1768 and 1771, provided a direct navigable route via the River Severn between Bristol and Britain's industrial heartlands in the Midlands. The building served as the first expression of the association between transport networks and provision of services for those using them, setting a precedent for later transport hotels, particularly the grand railway hotels of the 19th century.

The interior underwent alterations around 1810 and further subdivision in the mid-19th century, with additional changes in the 1970s.