Dorset County Museum

HIGH WEST STREET 1. 5l91 (North Side) Dorset County Museum SY 6990 7/245 II GV 2. 1881-3. Architects: G R Crickmay and Son of Weymouth. Portland with Ham stone dressings. Pitched slate roof. 2 storeys. 2 stringcourses, moulded batter at 1st floor cill level, moulded dripstone at eaves level, crenellated parapet. Central shallow canted 2 storey bay with 7 light mullion and transom window, each light with depressed arched head, upper window with 2 transoms and Perpendicular tracery in upper lights: crenellated parapet. Above this is gable with moulded coping, in which is set a 3 light mullion and transom window with hoodmould, and above it a trefoil-headed panel with Borough Arms and date of 1881. Right hand bay has on ground floor 1 single light window with transom and Perpendicular tracery above it. On corner of 1st floor is nearly circular 4-light oriel on carved foliate squinches with stringcourse carried round it as a transom, Perpendicular tracery in upper lights, ornamental frieze and battered stone roof. Left hand bay has panelled double doors set in deeply moulded 4-centred arch with circles and foliage in spandrels, and 3 moulded panels with escutcheons of arms above, the whole flanked by 2 slender buttresses of square section set diagonally, with applied ogee gablets and traceried panels, and topped by crocketed finials [c.f. the archetypal C.15 Dorset church tower]. Above this door is another single-light window with transom and Perpendicular tracery above it. Oblong chimneys of which end stacks are attached polygonal shafts with cornicing. Interior has an aisled hall carried on cast iron columns taking galleries above aisles, and then taking semi-circular transverse arches to roof. Elaborate tracery patterns to main trusses and to the brackets spanning the aisle bays. Nos 48 to 65A (consec)including the Shire Hall, Holy Trinity Church, the Museum, St. Peter's Church and monument to William Barnes in churchyard immediately south of West Tower form a group.

Listing NGR: SY6922190765