The Cove House Inn

The Cove House Inn is a public house located in Chiswell, Portland, with origins dating back to the early 19th century. The building features large square dressed Portland stone blocks, slate roofs, and stone stacks. The main central section is three storeys high and extends one bay to the right and one bay to the left at a lower level. The façade includes two windows on the upper floors, which are 4-pane sashes in flush boxes, while the ground floor has smaller 12-pane windows. A lean-to porch with a 20th-century door is situated at the center. To the left, there is a 4-pane sash above a broad recessed mid-20th-century window, and to the right, there is a similar arrangement. The left gable features an early 19th-century small 9-pane sash. At the right hipped end, there are two 4-pane sashes, and a gabled porch with stone cheeks is present at basement level, along with an additional door in the rear extension. The central block has gable stacks. The interior has been modified in the 20th century, but substantial dressed stone walls in the basement may be remnants of an earlier building on the site. The inn is historically significant as one of the few structures to survive the great storms of 1824, which caused extensive damage to the Portland coast. It played a key role during shipwreck events, particularly the Avalanche and Forest disaster of 1877, where watch was kept from its windows, survivors were sheltered, and victims' bodies were taken to the nearby "dead house" by the landlord's family. The inn also hosted many important meetings in the 19th century, including those for storm relief, the establishment of a lifeboat in 1870, and protests against the use of dynamite for fishing, which gained national attention in 1877.