18 Hill Street, Poole Town, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole

Summary

Former house, previously one of a pair of late-C18 dwellings, and attached former warehouse built around the mid-C19. Later additions and alterations. The attached late-C20 building to the rear (20 Hill Street) is not included.

Description

MATERIALS: the house is built in header bond brickwork with a left-hand ridge chimney stack and a tiled C18 valley mansard roof. The warehouse has stretcher bond brickwork and a gabled slate roof.

PLAN: the building is rectangular on plan. It comprises the former double-depth house of two bays and the adjacent former warehouse.

EXTERIOR: the house has two storeys and an attic, and the warehouse comprises a single bay of two storeys, a three-storey gabled section and a single-storey, three-bay section. The two right-hand bays of the original house have corbelled eaves which extend across the lower right-hand bay of the former warehouse, which is an early-C20 infill. A vertical joint in the brickwork and a slight change in the angle of the elevation mark the transition between the two. The house has a round-arched doorway with a four-panel door and an inserted shallow bay window to the ground floor, and two first-floor sash windows with cambered keyed heads. The flat-arched dormer window is a two-light casement. The infill bay has a wider round-arched doorway, partly infilled with brick and with an inserted door, and a first-floor window that matches those in the house. The three-storey gabled section of the warehouse is symmetrical, with wide central openings flanked by small round-arched windows on each floor. The ground-floor opening is an entrance with double doors, and there are taking-in doors to the openings above. There is diaper pattern brickwork in the gable. The single-storey section to the left has a parapet with a raised and curved open pediment to the centre, which is carried on short pilasters rising from a string course of shaped bricks and a moulded stone coping. There is a central segmental-arched, multi-paned window under a lintel of header bricks and with a small blank panel above. Either side of the window is a tall opening with incised voussoirs and cambered keyed segmental heads that contains late-C20 paired square lights with decorative glazing bars and four half-glazed false doors; the central two in the right-hand opening replaced with a matching pair of doors. These replaced full-height sliding doors. The left (south-west) return has two brick stepped buttresses and is blind. The right return has late-C20 three-over-six pane sashes to the ground and first floors and a six-over-six-pane sash to the upper floor. The rear elevation of the former house has three ground-floor sash windows, two at first floor and an attic window of two lights. The north-west return breaks forward of the former warehouse and has been rebuilt in brown brick. The rear of the warehouse has also been rebuilt.

INTERIOR: the interiors have been refurbished in the C20 and C21, with modern finishes and fittings. A spine corridor provides access to the various ground-floor rooms, while the first floor is accessed from a modern staircase in 20 Hill Street to the rear, and the upper floor is approached via a straight flight stair in the former house. A mezzanine floor has been created in the south-west end of the building, and above this is a steel standard fink truss roof.

Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that the attached late-C20 building to the rear (20 Hill Street) is not of special architectural or historic interest.

History

18 Hill Street comprises a former house and warehouse on the north side of the road. The house was originally one of a pair of attached dwellings, previously numbered 20 and 22 Hill Street, which were constructed in the late C18, a period of huge prosperity and extensive building in Poole, largely as a result of the Newfoundland cod fisheries trade (Conservation Area Appraisal, see Sources). Both houses are depicted on the Ordnance Survey map of 1841 with double-depth ranges fronting onto the street and long, narrow rear wings. The former warehouse was built after 1841 and is one of several industrial premises established on Hill Street, mainly during the C19. It is shown as a detached building on the south-west side of the pair of houses on the 1888 Ordnance Survey map and was extended to the rear before 1902 (second edition Ordnance Survey map). Sometime between 1902 and 1912, the left-hand house (20 Hill Street) was incorporated into the warehouse to provide office accommodation, and a single-bay addition was built to link the two buildings. Additional stores were added to the south-west and rear of the warehouse around this time. By the 1940s, it was a store and bottled beer distribution depot for Whitbread and Co Ltd, previously Poole Brewery, that occupied premises to the north-east on the corner of Towngate and Dear Hay Lane.

In the late 1960s, many of the buildings on Hill Street, including the right-hand house of the pair (22 Hill Street), were demolished during the redevelopment of the area. In 1976 the warehouse became a wholesale and retail store and offices. The additions to the rear, along with the rear wing of the former house, were demolished and replaced by a substantial L-shaped residential and office building (now 20 Hill Street) in the late 1990s. The interiors of the former warehouse and house have subsequently been refurbished and modernised. The building, which is now (2023) 18 Hill Street, is used as an advice centre, with offices and residential accommodation on the upper floors.

Reasons for Listing

18 Hill Street, a late-C18 former house and mid-C19 and early-C20 warehouse are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* despite the degree of later intervention, the building retains its external envelope and character as a former late-C18 townhouse and a C19 warehouse.

Historic interest:

* they are distinctive historic former domestic and commercial buildings that contribute to the architectural character and diversity of the area.

External Links

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.