Turton Villa

Once in a while you find something so interesting in a familiar place that you boggle at not having spotted it before. On hols in Dorset last month we had a wander about Weymouth and between the car park and the seafront we found a peculiar little tower poking up between the brick guesthouses.

This is Turton Villa, and this is about the only photograph one can get of it that gives even a remote idea what it might look like, as it's hemmed in by the buildings around it. English Heritage is right, notwithstanding the 1771 date above the doorway it looks mid-19th century rather than late 18th-century Gothick. Pevsner doesn't mention it, but then he wouldn't.

As you can see if you follow the link, there is a legend that the house is connected by a secret passage to Gloucester Lodge on the Esplanade so that George III could visit a mistress installed in the house. Unlikely on virtually every count, quite apart from the date.