Building MPM1500 - Synagogue, The Thicket

Portsmouth and Southsea Synagogue. Formerly a private residence known as 'Chilcote', the building was purchased by the Jewish community in 1936 and a Synagogue was built in the grounds (as an extension to the rear of the property). The new Synagogue replaced an earlier building erected in White's Row (now Curzon-Howe Street) in the late-18th century which was still in use until 1936. The new building in the thicket incorporated architectural features and artefacts from the White's Row Synagogue, including a glass dome and windows. The glass dome was damaged during the Second World War and replaced by one made of plaster. [1, p.107-8]

Classical interior, barrel-vaulted ceiling, galleries on short columns and tall arch to an apse with coffered semi-dome (post-war restoration). The original White's Row Synagogue building in Portsea which dated to 1780 was destroyed in the Blitz. Furnishings from this earlier building incorporated into the thicket include benches, 18th century Ark with fluted Corinthian columns and entablature with cresting of the tablets below a crown, and stained glass east windows of 1876 depicting the Script of the Ten Commandments.. [2, p.475]

Red brick building with clay tiled roof built between 1900 and 1939. Synagogue at rear behind halls and meeting rooms from 1936. [3]

<1> Offord, J, 1989, Churches, Chapels and Places of Worship on Portsea Island (Bibliographic reference). SPM39.

<2> O'Brien, Bailey, Pevsner, Lloyd, 2018, The Buildings of England Hampshire: South (Bibliographic reference). SPM585.

<3> Portsmouth City Council, 2011, City of Portsmouth Local List of Buildings (Bibliographic reference). SPM37.