Melcombe Block House (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Weymouth.
In the historic county of Dorset.
Modern Authority of Dorset.
1974 county of Dorset.
Medieval County of Dorset.

OS Map Grid Reference: SY68027909
Latitude 50.61063° Longitude -2.45333°

Melcombe Block House has been described as a probable Artillery Fort.

There are no visible remains.

Description

A fort 45ft square & built of stone, known as the Block House, stood, as near as can be ascertained, opposite the passage leading from St. Mary's - Maiden Street, called Blockhouse Lane. Mentioned in AD1568 & 1617 (Hutchin).
The area is covered by a modern building and roadway. No trace of antiquity was found (F1 JR 12-AUG-54). (PastScape)

{fort} was erected at the then entrance of the town upon the spot now occupied by Charloote Row, it was a square fort built of stone, and called the Block House, there were embrasures for eight guns, although only five were mounted. 10th of Queen Elizabeth the office of gunner (Vibellator) was granted to Richard Smith for life. (Ellis)

Comments

Presumably mainly built by the town of Melcombe (The area north of the harbour was town of Melcombe, with Weymouth being a separate town south of the harbour, until 1571 when they were united as one borough), rather than a royal defence or would be more recorded in royal documents although the royal appointment of the gunner suggests some royal funding. Could be any late medieval date but more probably Elizabethan than earlier. Ellis mentions other 'forts' at the harbour mouth and Grosvenor Place but these are not dated by him and were probably C17.

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 451637.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 4 002 481.

Books
- Ellis, G.A., 1829, The history and antiquities of the borough and town of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis (Weymouth) p. 187 online copy
  Hutchin, J., 1861 (3edn org. pub. 1774), History of Dorset Vol. 2 p. 455 (Facsimile edn by EP Publishing produced 1973)
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Dorset County Council, 2011, Dorset Historic Towns Survey: Weymouth and Melcombe Regis Download copy

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

Data >	PastScape	County HER
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	LiDAR	Open Domesday
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio