Description

WEYMOUTH

SY6878NW CUSTOM HOUSE QUAY
873-1/24/64 (North side)
14/06/74 No.11
(Formerly Listed as:
CUSTOMS HOUSE QUAY
Seamen's Institute)

GV II

Shown on OS map as Youth Centre.
Sailors' Bethel (Ricketts), later Seamen's Institute, and
Royal Dorset Yacht Club, now club and restaurant. Opened June
1866. Dark grey brick in Flemish bond, painted stone trim,
slate roof.
PLAN: a long narrow building, with modelled gable to the Quay,
at an angle to the party walls; the gable conceals a roof of
lower pitch behind.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, with gabled facade containing stepped
triple blind round-arched opening with small open oculi, under
continuous stepped label course, above 5 vertical deep-set
lights in an arcade with slender three-quarter colonnettes to
plain flush arches under a continuous stepped label, and on a
full-width sill band. Ground floor is triple-arched, with a
pair of glazed doors under plain fanlight to the left, a
central pair of plank doors with fanlight, and a plain light
to the right, all to a flush band and arches with continuous
stepped label and stopped ends. Stone plinth, a deep sill band
to the bottom floor, and the whole front is contained in brick
pilaster quoins carrying a deep moulded gable cornice with
leaf enrichment.
Rear wall is of brick, under a hipped roof, with 2 small
3-light small-pane casements at the eaves, and a large
flat-roofed extension.
INTERIOR: has one large space at the ground floor, with some
later partitions, and with lightweight banded cast-iron
columns with palmette capitals to bracketed heads, in 2 rows.
A straight flight openwork iron stair to the left rises to the
open first floor with a deep coved ceiling containing a series
of central cast-iron vents, plus access hatches.
HISTORICAL NOTE: a 1903 photograph inside refers to it as the
Seamen's Bethel; an advertisement of 1866 states: 'The
Committee of the Weymouth Sailors' Society have long felt the
importance of obtaining a more suitable place for the holding
of Religious Services than that which is at present occupied
as a Bethel. They have at length through the kindness of Sir F
Johnstone Bart., secured, free of cost, a most eligible site

on the Quay, together with the premises at present standing on
it and known as the Old Baths.' The advertisement goes on to
seek the sum of »700, for a '... plain but neat Bethel, with a
Reading Room...'.
In vaguely Venetian mode, this makes a bold statement on the
quayside. Except for some later lightweight partitioning, the
interior appears unaltered.
(Ricketts E: The Buildings of Old Weymouth: Melcombe Regis and
Westham: Weymouth: 1976-: 119).

Listing NGR: SY6808078752

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26561993

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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