Gloucester Lodge With The Cork And Bottle Public House

Gloucester Lodge with The Cork and Bottle Public House, Weymouth

Building type and history

This property comprises a house later converted to a hotel and now apartments with a public house, located on the Esplanade at Weymouth. The original core—the right-hand range—dates from around 1780 and is historically significant as the residence of George III from approximately 1790 onwards. A major extension to the south was added around 1850. The interior was destroyed by fire and subsequently remodelled in 1927. The building is now in two distinct units which together form one property: the mid-19th-century block returns to Gloucester Street, while the original 1780 house forms the right-hand range.

Architecture and exterior

The building is constructed in Flemish bond brickwork with limestone dressings and slate roofs.

The mid-19th-century Esplanade front presents three storeys, an attic, and basement. Six two-light dormers with segmental roofs top the facade, each featuring lunette glazing with haunched pilasters to the cheeks. The first and second-floor sashes have stone surrounds; at second-floor level these are plat band with panelled stone aprons linking to cornices above moulded architraves. The first-floor sashes are deep with moulded sill bands and small individual cast-iron balconies. A deep projecting ground-floor balcony with near-flat roof spans seven large square bays (partly covering the adjoining range), supported on square pilasters, each bay containing four vertical panes. The main wall plane features lofty segmental-headed sashes in painted surrounds with keystones; bays one and four have small-pane paired French doors under small-pane transom lights. The verandah is carried on cast-iron columns and brackets down to the basement, where various doors and windows serve the Cork and Bottle public house. A slight plinth is surmounted by a deep stone cornice on brackets.

The return to Gloucester Street has a single central sash at each level with dressings, and to the left a deep square flat-roofed portico with panelled door under decorative fanlight in an arch with keystone, architrave and responds. Small arched lights flank the returns. A stone frieze, cornice and blocking crown the portico. A further stone cornice at first-floor sill level continues left over a one-storey projecting wing with wide brick pilasters framing two blank arches, and a large glazed opening on the garden front. The main block has two deep stacks with the principal cornice returned. The rear elevation features raking sash dormers above four-pane sashes set in brick voussoirs; a triple sash with narrow side-lights and brick mullions lights the principal stair.

The right-hand range incorporates the original 1780 house, now raised to three floors with two levels of attics and basement. The centre four bays are slightly recessed, with the main entrance relocated to bay six. To the Esplanade, an upper range of six recessed dormers sits above seven at parapet level, all with paired sashes except the central one which has a triple sash. First and second floors have small sashes—twelve-pane at second-floor and six-pane below. The ground floor features a large Palladian window in each end bay with glazing-bar sashes and radial heads in narrow stone dressings. The recessed section contains a deep twelve-pane sash, door with transom light, another deep twelve-pane sash, and 20th-century doors on eight plus two steps within a deep pedimented portico brought to the pavement, ending the large glazed bays of the verandah. A small moulded stone cornice runs below the second-floor windows; raised gables are coped with large brick stacks. The rear elevation has four upper dormers and seven at parapet level, all flat-roofed, with a plain parapet containing small glazing-bar sashes at each level; a group of four small lights in a slightly stepped unit and six in the main unit.

Historical significance

The original Gloucester Lodge, comprising the eight-bay right-hand range in only two storeys and cellars, is important as a residence of George III from around 1790. The building's occupation by the King exemplifies the royal patronage that was vital to Weymouth's vigorous development as a seaside resort. A garden originally occupied the southern side of the property, now filled by the later 19th-century extension.