Museum And Avice'S Cottage

PORTLAND

SY6871 WAKEHAM, Easton 969-1/4/82 (East side) 16/01/51 No.217 Museum and Avice's Cottage (Formerly Listed as: WAKEHAM, Easton No.217 Portland Museum) (Formerly Listed as: WAKEHAM, Easton Avice's Cottage)

GV II

Two former cottages now both serving as Portland Museum. No 217 is of the C17 but much modified in the early C19; good squared and coursed dressed block, thatch roof. Two storeys, 2-windowed. 16-pane C19 sashes in chamfered flush plat surrounds to wood cills; ground-floor window left formerly wider, probably 3-light mullioned casement. Central flat slabbed stone porch with small opening towards street and plank door on return to S; ground-floor window right was former doorway. Raised coped verge and slab capping to former stack, right, big kneeler stones. Blocked 1-light attic opening to gable return which links to adjoining cottage with length of wall closing gap to roof slope. Avice's Cottage is now without floor or partitions, but may have been cross-passage 2-room plan, returns at right angles to No 217, squared dressed stone block and thatched roof; one storey and attic, with coped gable to left over 16-pane sash under a stopped moulded drip, and at ground floor a similar window but a 24-pane casement. To right a 20-pane sash, and cntre a plank door. The front gable carries date stone 1640, and is coped on large kneelers; the return gable wall, left, is plain except for small blocked light set low right. Right end gable is plain, largely covered by a later extension (nsi). At back No 217 has swept-down extension to door and single light, and Avice's Cottage has basket-head recess at mid height and horizontal sliding sash 2x12-pane in flush surround. Interior of Avice's Cottage, has deep bressumer fire at W end, with C19 grate, and three small square exits to flue, and an C18 fire at upper level; copper boiler in NE corner. No 217 has deep wood bressumer fireplace on stone cheeks to N wall, with deep recess to left roofed with close-set beams or thick planks, stone slab floor, stick baluster stair. The property was a gift to Islanders from Dr. Marie Stopes in 1929. Its name derives from Thomas Hardy's 'The Well-Beloved', which features three generations of Avice's on the 'Isle of Slingers'. (Royal Commission on Historical Monuments: Dorset: London: 1970-: 257).

Listing NGR: SY6961871257