Birkdale Lodge

Birkdale Lodge is a villa dating from around 1850, with later alterations and additions to the east end, designed by John Aughton and subsequently converted into two flats by Wignall & Ainsworth. The building is constructed of stucco painted white, with stone dressings painted black, some timber framing, and has slate roofs. It exhibits an eclectic style, combining Italianate and vernacular features.

The house is built on an irregular double-depth plan, featuring a south porch-tower and a single-storey wing at the northwest corner. The two-storey south front has four bays; the first and third are gabled, the second is a square porch-tower, and the fourth projects forward as a short gabled wing. The ground floor of the tower has a round-headed doorway approached by a low balustraded flight of steps, and a matching round-headed window, both with keyed arch-bands and a moulded impost band topped with a cornice. The upper floor of the tower has continuous wooden mullioned and transomed windows with leaded glazing and stained glass in the upper lights, supported by bracketed eaves beneath a steeply-pitched pyramidal roof with swept oversailing eaves and a weather vane finial.

To the left of the tower, the first bay has a French window at ground floor and a sash with a moulded architrave at first floor, finished with open-pedimental oversailing eaves and an apex finial. To the right, the third bay features a canted bay window at ground floor with a bracketed cornice extending across the fourth bay, also canted to full height, with sashes and gables mirroring the first bay. Most windows contain geometrical leaded glazing. Chimneys are located on the front and rear slopes.

The left return side has giant pilasters forming three unequal round-headed bays; the central bay is blank, while the outer bays contain canted bay windows at ground floor with bracketed cornices and pierced parapets, and round-headed sashes above. This side extends to the rear with a single-storey wing or pavilion, which has an eight-light canted bay window and a projecting gable on the south side and a large semicircular bay window on its north side.

The interior features a full-height open hall with timber-framed and panelled walls, a carved oak fireplace, a fine 18th-century-style staircase that wraps around two sides, and a galleried landing.

Birkdale Lodge is believed to be one of the first two houses built in Birkdale Park, an area developed by the Weld Blundell family under an Act of Parliament in 1848.