St George'S Centre

This is a former school, now a community information and activity centre, built in 1857. It was constructed by contractors Hansford and Waight at a cost of £775. The building is of rubble stone with ashlar dressings, except for a set-back wing to the right, which is in ashlar. It has slate roofs. The design is a wide, flat "H" shape, with schoolrooms at the centre behind an arcade, and gabled cross wings at either end. There is a rear extension to the right wing, and a projecting square unit at the back centre of the building. A gabled doorway at the left end links to a later school hall.

The building is two storeys high, with coped gables and moulded kneelers. The gables facing the street have small ventilating slits above 6-pane casement windows, which are positioned over 2-light, 8-pane casements, all set in chamfered surrounds. The schoolrooms are set back behind a one-storey arcade of six bays, with flat, four-centred arches covered by a slate lean-to roof. This arcade provides access through wide, paired plank doors in bays 2 and 5, with further plank doors on returns. A clerestory above the arcade has a series of cast-iron, 9-pane casements, divided by stone mullions, with one centre-hung, 4-pane light in each group. The centre of the arcade has a blank wall beneath a pointed, lead-covered bellcote, renewed in 1984. A substantial brick chimney stack is located at each end of the classroom unit.

The return side of the right wing includes a single-storey canted bay and a door tight in the corner, with 4-pane sashes on each level. A further canted bay is at the rear of this wing, partially concealed by the additional unit. At the left end, a gateway with a segmental arch leads to a small gable. The projecting unit at the centre back of the building is hipped towards the classroom block, which has identical clerestory fenestration to the front. Several lean-to units are situated at the rear.

Inside, the two classrooms, refurbished in 1984, form one space with a timber screen divider. The roof is of six bays, featuring composite rod and rafter trusses, with heavy doubled timber trusses below the bellcote. There is a stone fireplace at each end of the room. The original school building benefitted from a £20,000 compensatory sum received by the Parish during the construction of the Portland Breakwater. It is a formal composition, used as a school until 1865, and carefully restored by the St. George’s Trust in 1984 as a community centre with workshops. During the 1984 restoration, characteristic "contemporary artefacts" were sealed in the new bellcote before it was installed.