32 West Street, Poole, Dorset
Jolliffe
House
Grade II Listed · Established c.1730
One of Poole’s most distinguished merchant houses, standing at the heart of the Old Town for nearly three centuries. A building that has witnessed the rise and fall of maritime empires, industrial endeavour, and the quiet passage of time.
constructed
by William Jolliffe
Historic England
Architectural Study — Jolliffe House, Poole — c.1730, extended 1831–35
A Chronology
Three centuries
of Poole history
c.1730
The Jolliffe Mansion
William Jolliffe, a prosperous Poole merchant, constructs a fine Georgian mansion on West Street. At the time, the garden runs directly down to the sea, with a private jetty close to the water’s edge — a mark of the family’s considerable wealth and maritime standing.
1751–60
Atlantic Trade
The Jolliffe family’s commercial empire reaches its height. Jolliffe ships conduct nine voyages from West Africa to Charleston in the American colonies, trading as part of Poole’s deeply entangled participation in the transatlantic trade. The wealth this generates is writ large in the fabric of the house.
1774
Distinguished Visitors
Henry Laurens, the American statesman and former President of the Continental Congress, visits Poole and calls upon Peter Jolliffe Junior at West Street — one of many prominent figures to pass through these doors during the town’s prosperous Georgian era.
1831–35
Rebuilding & Extension
The house undergoes significant remodelling. A Roman Doric portico with Greek key frieze is added to the principal front, alongside a new north wing. The building assumes its present Early Georgian form — stucco over brick, five-window range, three storeys and basement.
1864
A New Purpose
The property is acquired for use as the Dorset Home Industrial School for Girls, founded to train young women from across the county for domestic service. The Reverend Carr Glyn purchases the house — described as “a large old-fashioned house with a good garden attached” — and leases it to the trustees at a nominal rent.
1872
Certified Industrial School
On 29th February, the Home is formally certified to operate as an Industrial School, enabling it to receive girls placed under the authority of magistrates. At any one time, the house accommodates around thirty girls learning needlework, laundry work, and household management.
1954
Listed by the State
Jolliffe House is designated a Grade II Listed Building by Historic England on 14th June, in recognition of its architectural distinction and historical importance. The listing records its fine Doric portico, keyed stone architraves, and notable interior dogleg staircase as features of particular significance.
Present
A Building Continued
Jolliffe House stands today much as it did in the early nineteenth century. Its iron railings, stone piers, and panelled front door remain intact. Now in residential and office use, it endures as one of the finest and most storied Georgian townhouses in the south of England.
The Building
Early Georgian
in Character
Jolliffe House presents one of the most complete Georgian elevations surviving in Poole’s Old Town. The main front is double-fronted with rusticated quoins, a projecting cornice, and a parapet above. At the centre, the Roman Doric portico — added in the early nineteenth century — announces the entrance with scholarly authority: four columns beneath an entablature adorned with a Greek key frieze.
The six-over-six sash windows, characteristic of the Georgian period, march across the facade in a five-window range on each floor, their keyed stone architraves providing quiet ornamental relief against the stuccoed surface. Internally, the building is reported to retain an exceptional rear dogleg stair, with moulded ramped handrail and column-on-vase balusters — a virtuoso piece of Georgian joinery.
“One of the prominent merchants’ houses from Poole’s early prosperity.”
Historic England Listing — 1217536The Builders
The Jolliffe Family
of Poole
Merchant of Poole
fl. 1721–1760
The Jolliffe family were among the foremost merchant dynasties of Georgian Poole, a town then at the height of its commercial prosperity through the Newfoundland salt cod trade and its connections with the American colonies.
In 1721, at the age of twenty-three, William Jolliffe sailed his own vessel — Jolliffe’s Adventure — to Carolina, initiating a trading relationship that would define the family’s fortunes for decades. Their rising wealth found expression in the mansion on West Street, built around 1730 and one of the grandest domestic buildings in the town.
“When William Jolliffe built his mansion house in West Street around 1730, his garden led straight down to the sea.”
A map of the 1770s shows the Jolliffe garden extending to a private jetty — a vivid illustration of the family’s integration of domestic and mercantile life. As reclamation gradually pushed the shoreline further west, what had once been direct access to the water became a long garden, then eventually a city street.
The family’s history is inseparable from the broader story of Poole’s colonial commerce, including their participation in the transatlantic slave trade — a chapter that the town continues to acknowledge and examine as part of its heritage. It is a history the house carries silently but honestly, built as it was from the profits of that era.
Subsequent Chapters
Lives Lived
Within These Walls
The Merchant’s House
For the better part of a century, Jolliffe House served as the seat of one of Poole’s most prominent trading families, its rooms a theatre for the commerce, sociability, and ambition that characterised Georgian mercantile life in the ports of southern England.
The Industrial School
From 1864, the house was repurposed as the Dorset Home Industrial School for Girls. Some thirty young women at a time learned the skills of domestic service within its walls — needlework, laundry, housekeeping — in a pattern common to late-Victorian philanthropy. A schoolroom and new laundry were added; from the garden, views of Poole Harbour could be obtained.
The House Today
Now in office and residential use, Jolliffe House retains its listed status and much of its original fabric. The ironwork railings, stone gate piers, panelled front door with cast-iron decorative panels, and the Roman Doric portico all survive. It stands as a rare, substantially intact example of Poole’s Georgian prosperity.
Find the House
West Street,
Old Town, Poole
Jolliffe House32 West Street
Poole, Dorset
BH15 1LD