Theatre Attached To West Of Boscombe Manor (Shelley Manor)

SZ 1191 BOURNEMOUTH BEECHWOOD AVENUE Boscombe 768/22/10056 Theatre attached to West of Boscombe Manor (Shelley Manor)

II

Country house private theatre. 1865-6; possibly by Joseph Peacock; for Sir Percy Florence Shelley; altered 1870. Red brick with stone dressings. Slate hipped roof with deep eaves. Later [C20] brick stack on west side. PLAN: Rectangular plan auditorium with stage at west end and attached to Boscombe Manor [not included] at east end. EXTERIOR: One storey and attic. 2:5 bays, left two bays project, brick pilasters and stringcourses between bays, ground floor french casements, lunettes above, and stone balustrade/frieze of linked roundels to attic casements set under eaves. The balustrade, stringcourses and pilasters continued on projection to left, the left bay with lower 2-storey wing on which brick stringcourses and pilasters continue; lunettes on east and west sides and two 4-pane sashes on front; large C20 brick stack on SW corner. Brick pilasters and strings on west side. Later additions on north elevation. INTERIOR: Auditorium has moulded plaster ceiling cornices and plastered beams on console brackets. Private box on east side with flanking consoles and sliding shutters. Moulded elliptical proscenium with imposts. The auditorium was originally painted with murals. Raised stage without machinery. Floor of auditorium is not raked. NOTE: Boscombe Manor was bought in 1851 by Sir Percy Florence Shelley [1819-1889], son of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft. He remodelled the earlier C19 house in the 1850s and built a temporary private theatre in the grounds, which he replaced by this theatre in 1865-6.

Listing NGR: SZ1189991599