The Judges' Lodgings, Attached Forecourt, Steps, Gate Piers, Gates And Railings

The Judges' Lodgings, attached forecourt, steps, gate piers, gates and railings

Town house with attached forecourt, steps and gate piers, now a museum. Built circa 1625 for Thomas Covell, incorporating structural timbers re-used from a timber-framed building and perhaps on earlier foundations. Extended and altered in 1675 and the early 19th century. Restored circa 1975.

The building is constructed of sandstone rubble (presumably once rendered) with plain quoins and ashlar dressings, with wrought-iron gates and railings. It has a slate roof. The plan is U-shaped, formed in three stages: the original single-depth, three-unit principal block with a central doorway, a short rear wing to the left (or south) with chimney stacks on the gables and behind the central unit; a rear wing to the right (or north) dated 1675; and the extension of the left-hand rear wing and the enlargement of the principal block to double depth after 1826.

The building rises 3 storeys above a basement, expressed as an ashlar plinth, and comprises 7 bays with a plain modillion cornice (probably early 19th century) and coped gables with kneelers and ball finials. The central doorway has a heavily-moulded segmental head and jambs, flanked by a pair of Doric columns with pronounced entasis supporting a triglyph frieze with roses in the metopes and a lion's head (the badge of the Cole family) over each column. The prominent moulded cornice breaks back between the columns and carries an open segmental pediment with seven raised and fielded panels in the soffit; this pediment does not fit easily on the cornice and suggests that the doorway in its present form is the product of two or, probably, three stages of construction. In the tympanum of the pediment is a panel repainted circa 1986 with the arms of the Lancashire County Council. The double door has six raised and fielded panels in each leaf.

All the windows have roll-moulded architraves and a similar sill band. Above the windows on the ground and first floors are relieving arches of rubble masonry. These windows were originally cross-windows, as can now be seen on the second floor of the left-hand gable, but on the ground and first floors they now have 12-pane sashes, and 9-pane sashes on the second floor. At the very bottom of the left-hand gable wall is a blocked three-light mullioned window, presumably of the early 16th century.

The wall of the right-hand rear wing has a blocked doorway with a lintel bearing a scarcely legible datestone with raised letters: TCT 1675. At the rear there are one-bay wings of random rubble with quoins, probably added in the late 17th century, the south wing extended by half a bay, and a new rear wall built across between them in the early 19th century. All these ranges are full-height and have 19th-century openings, but some 17th-century openings survive: the re-entrant of the north wing has a chamfered doorway on the ground floor, and both wings have blocked cross windows on two floors above; there is also a cross-window, perhaps not in situ, on the ground floor of the original rear wall (only visible inside).

Interior

The central three-bay hall has a diamond-flagged floor and a wide fireplace with a moulded surround in the rear wall. The parlour to the right has early-to-mid 18th-century panelling, with fluted pilasters and raised and fielded panels above and below the dado rail, also a fireplace with a bolection-moulded surround and a built-in cupboard with a coved top painted as a scallop. In the north wing the stone staircase with scrolled treads dates from the early 19th century. On the first floor the principal room, occupying four bays, has full panelling (now painted) like that in the parlour, including double doors. On the second floor there is a longitudinal partition wall with some exposed timber-framing and wattle-and-daub panels. In the cellar is a low blocked archway which may antedate the present building.

Subsidiary features

The raised forecourt with entrance staircase, gate piers, gates and railings is mid-18th century. It is of rectangular plan, flagged, and stands approximately 2 metres above street level. It has a retaining wall of large dressed blocks with an ashlar coping carrying bar railings set diagonally. In the centre, approached by a double flight of stone steps with iron railings terminating in wreaths with twisted standards and urn finials, is a pair of tall square gate piers of rusticated ashlar, capped with an emphatic cornice bearing iron lamp standards of circa 1975. The high double gates have simple bars with a central band of scrolled openwork.

History

Thomas Covell (1561–1639) was six times mayor of Lancaster and for 48 years Keeper of Lancaster Castle; as such he was responsible for keeping and executing the ten 'Pendle Witches' in 1612. The house was subsequently occupied by the Brockholes, Cole, and Butler families and was used as the Judges' Lodgings at the time of the Assizes between 1828 and 1975. It was then taken over by the Lancashire County Museums Service and a programme of repairs, which included strengthening of timbers, was undertaken before fully opening to the public.