Castle Lodge

Castle Lodge is a lodge dating back to the 17th century, and possibly incorporating earlier fabric. It stands on the south side of Market Place, Bishop Auckland, and originally served as a lodge to the bishop’s park. It is now used as two flats and a conference room. The lodge is constructed of coursed squared stone with ashlar dressings, with rubble returns and rear walls. The roof is said to be covered in blue slates, although it is not fully visible.

The lodge has a basement and three storeys, displaying three windows. A flight of stone steps leads to a central doorway with a stone architrave featuring shaped panels and enriched scroll brackets on acanthus leaves, topped by a pulvinated frieze to the pediment. Above the door is a two-light window. Full-height canted bays flank the central doorway, each featuring three lights with a pulvinated frieze and cornice. Stone mullions are present in all windows, with transoms to the ground and first floors, fitted with leaded casements. The roof is finished with a battlemented parapet, and is said to have three ridges.

The rear elevation, at a lower level, has a central boarded basement door, large 18th-century wheel windows to the stairwell on each floor, and a blocked square window in the centre.

Inside, a close-string dogleg staircase rises through two floors, with fat turned balusters and a ramped handrail; the top flight has been removed and the balusters used to create a first-floor gallery. The basement features cobbled and brick floors, old plank partitions to the front, blocked cellar chutes, and large timber beams with run-off chamfered spine beams with run-out stops. A studded rear door has strap hinges with curled splayed ends. A rear right room contains a 17th-century boarded door with a glazed rough-hewn light and strap hinges with curled splayed ends. A cupboard door in the opposite wall has 17th-century L hinges. Ground floor partitions have been inserted, creating separate entrances for the two flats and a conference room. One room contains an imposing stone fire surround with an architrave, pulvinated frieze and scroll-bracketed cornice. Moulded stucco cornices are also present in these rooms, although one is interrupted by a 20th-century partition. Other rooms have 20th-century doors and finishing, including conversion of the right ground-floor rooms into a conference room in 1991, featuring a late 20th-century cornice in the style of the late 17th century. The top floor was disused at the time of the survey.

Castle Lodge is an important feature in the setting of Auckland Castle, and an earlier form of the lodge, without the wheel windows, appears in an undated painting within the castle.