The Corn Exchange is a great venue for pretty much any occasion, birthday parties, weddings, conferences, cinema, dance and music and more. Room hire starts at just £20 per hour.
The Corn Exchange is also the regular home to Dorchester Arts.
The Corn Exchange is a Grade II* Listed Building in the centre of Dorchester. The Building is two storeys with walls of Broadmayne brick with Bath and Portland stone dressings and a tile of slate roof over. The building was designed by Benjamin Ferrey (who also designed All Saints’ Church and the old County Hospital in the town) and erected in 1847-48 by the builder Samuel Slade.
The building replaced an earlier town hall of 1792 which stood a little further west with an arched passageway into North Square.
The building originally comprised a corn exchange, assembly hall and council chamber. Later in the 19th century a new market and police station were added to the north.
The clock turret was added to the building in 1864. It is known as ‘Galpin’s Folly’, after Mayor Galpin who partly paid for it and who approved Benjamin Ferrey’s designs for a tower on a slender pillar. There was public concern that the tower would fall off. It hasn’t yet!
