Listed Building record MDO3621 - The Portman Chapel, Bryanston

Parish church, now private chapel, built in 1745. The building has rendered walls with rusticated stone quoins forming angle pilasters, and slate roofs with pedimented stone gables.

Old church of Saint Martin at Bryanston. Grade A. <3>

The Portman Chapel, formerly Old Church of St Martin. <4>

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey map 1:10,560, 1969 (Map). SDO18658.

(ST 87460705) St Martin's Church

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 1, 46-47 (Monograph). SDO146.

‘(1) The Portman Chapel (87460705) stands on the site of the mediaeval church. Hutchins (I, 263) states that the chancel of the old parish church was rebuilt in 1745, and by this he probably means that the present undivided Nave and Chancel took the place of the old chancel, the rest of the mediaeval church being demolished. The antecedent nave had been rebuilt in the 16th century but nothing visible today is earlier than the 18th century; only the flint plinths in the E. part of the chapel may incorporate earlier masonry. A Vestry with rendered brick walls to the S. of the chapel is of the 19th century.

The 18th-century chapel has walls of rendered flint and rubble, with ashlar dressings and rusticated stone quoins forming angle pilasters; the roofs are slate-covered, with lead ridges. The N. and S. walls have stone cornices with modillions, and the E. and W. walls have pedimented gables with moulded cornices. Above the W. gable is a wooden bell-cote with a clock and a small bell under a concave lead-covered cupola. On the outside of the E. wall is a blind Palladian window. The chapel is lit by two Venetian windows in the N. wall and by a round-headed window to the S.; the latter was originally a doorway and is flanked externally by a pair of Ionic columns supporting an entablature with a reeded frieze and paterae. The square-headed W. doorway is flanked by Ionic columns carrying a segmental pediment.

Inside, the combined Nave and Chancel form a chamber measuring 49½ ft. by 15½ ft., rectangular, except that the two W. corners are convex, making space in the S.W. corner for a wooden vice to the bell-cote and in the N.W. corner for a closet. Plaster cornices with acanthus mouldings run the length of the N. and S. walls but do not return to E. and W.; over them, coves lead up to a flat plaster ceiling with a moulded border. …’

<2.1> Hutchins, J, 1861, The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset. Volume 1. 3rd edition, 263 (Monograph). SDO12569.

<3> DOE (HHR), 1954, List of Buildings of Special Historic or Architectural Interest: Blandford Rural District, 3 (Scheduling record). SDO17701.

<4> Newman, J, and Pevsner, N, 1972, The Buildings of England: Dorset, 120 (Monograph). SWX1290.

<5> Historic England, Historic England Archive, BF051561 (Index). SDO14738.

PORTMAN CHAPEL, BRYANSTON: File of material relating to a site or building. This material has not yet been fully catalogued. Copyright, date, and quantity information for this record may be incomplete or inaccurate.

<6> National Record of the Historic Environment, 205439 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Jun 30 2022 12:06PM