East Quay at West Bay Harbour, Dorset, showing Quay Terrace (now Pier Terrace), by Edward Schroder Prior (1852-1932), 1884-85. Photograph © David Dixon.
The Grade II listed terraced row seen here was an early work by Prior, who originally designed an eight-house terrace for the quayside. This was eventually adapted, in some ways unfortunately so. Most notably, it was "turned through 90 degrees, allowing rooms on both sides to enjoy the sun at different times of day but requiring that the block be stepped down the slope of the land, weakening its unity" (Valinsky 49). More obviously, the row was extended from eight to ten, and then further lengthened, which not only explains "the loss of the chamfering and corner bays that marked the original design" (Valinsky 49), but accounts for the fact that while eight of the houses have three storeys and an attic, the others are a full four storeys high.
A partial but closer view, shown from the west, Photograph © David Valinsky.
Still, the row makes an interesting and unusual terrace, already typically "a-stylistic" as David Valinsky puts it (49), and clearly exhibiting in its different materials this architect's love of expressive, enlivening texture. The listing text notes the "[r]usticated stone ground floor, part pebbledashed top two storeys, second floor hung with fish-scale slates.... South end shingled," and so on.
Also typical is the fact that there seems to be no source or text-book style here. Prior started as he meant to go on, designing according to his own vision of what might best suit and capitalise on such a setting.
The row is rather amusingly described by Alexander Gray as "a row of houses on an old deserted quay, known locally as ‘Noah’s Ark’, with no obvious reason for their presence, unless for some vanished fishing or coasting industry" (296). From the busy scenes shown here, the situation seems to have changed somewhat.
First photograph by David Dixon, from the Geograph website, reproduced under the terms of the Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic CC BY-SA 2.0 Deed. Closer view by David Valinsky, reproduced by kind permission for purposes of review (see bibliography). Text and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Bibliography
1-12, Pier Terrace, West Bay, Bridport, Dorset. Historic England. Web. 17 September 2026.
East Quay at West Bay Harbour, Dorset. Geograph. Web. 17 September 2026.
Gray, Alexander Stuart. Edwardian Architecture: A Biographical Dictionary. London: Duckworth, 1985.
Valinsky, David. The Architecture and Writings of E. S. Prior: Challenging the Arts and Crafts. London: Lund Humphries, 2026. [Review]
Created 17 September 2026