15/09/2026
🏴☠️ BLACK DOG HISTORY UPDATE — AND THIS ONE IS A BEAUTY!
Another batch of original Black Dog documents has been provided by the Dorset History Centre and amongst the deeds, mortgages and agreements is something particularly exciting — a detailed plan of the Black Dog from 1860.
For the first time, we can actually see the layout of the pub as it stood more than 160 years ago: the bar, parlour, kitchen, scullery, cellar, yard, stairs and adjoining buildings, together with the neighbouring properties.
But the really exciting bit is what the plan may has helped us locate…
🪟 THE “ANCIENT WINDOW”.
More than a decade before this plan was drawn, the Black Dog deeds were already referring to an ancient window and protecting the pub’s right to light and air in relation to the neighbouring property.
Until now, we knew about that window from the written records — but couldn’t confidently place it on the building.
The 1860 plan appears to change that.
Comparing the plan with the surviving structure has allowed us to identify where that historic opening was situated — and incredibly, the location survives inside the Black Dog today, concealed within what is now our kitchen.
So something described as old enough to warrant special protection over 170 years ago and referred to as ancient then seriously makes you question how old was it?
And these documents contain much more.
📜 They trace later transactions involving the Black Dog, Sun Inn and Star Inn, including mortgages, conveyances and the Devenish family, and another document records the Black Dog specifically as a “messuage or public house” in St Mary Street.
Then, jumping forward to 1915, we have the actual tenancy agreement between J. A. Devenish & Co. Ltd. and licensed victualler Nere Lachlan Downing, at an annual rent of £38.
Every document is adding another piece to a story we’ve now traced back through centuries of Weymouth history.
An old deed referring to an “ancient window”, then find it on a Victorian plan and properly locate it is just amazing!
And there is still a LOT more in these papers to unravel. 🐕🍺📜
