Lodge And Gate Screen To Loughborough Grammar School

The lodge and gate screen were built in 1852 as part of the relocation of Loughborough Grammar School, designed by John Morris and Charles Hebson of Lambeth. The structure is built of red brick with burnt header diapering, featuring stone dressings, coped gables, and a parapeted slate roof. It is executed in the Tudor Gothic style.

The two-storey lodge is arranged in an L-shaped plan, with gables at the wing ends and a polygonal turret in the re-entrant angle. The turret extends above the eaves line and is topped with an octagonal lantern turret and a stone pyramidal roof. The windows are primarily 2- and 3-light stone mullion casements with hoodmoulds, and the turret incorporates small single-light windows with blocked openings above. A carved panel of a quatrefoil framing the initials "TB" (for Thomas Burton, the founder) adorns the first floor, facing the driveway to the school.

The interior largely features 20th-century fittings, but retains a dog-leg staircase with angled balusters, newels with shaped heads.

The gate screen has 4-centred pedestrian archways on either side of the driveway, with the walling concluding in an octagonal gatepier topped with a pyramidal cap mirroring the turret. Beyond the drive, the screen ends in a small gabled building, also in the Tudor Gothic style, with a window at the front and a door to the rear. A small single-storey wing, including a 20th-century extension, adjoins the rear of the lodge.

Loughborough Grammar School was founded in 1495, and the school buildings were rebuilt on the present site, known as Burton Walks, in 1852. The design of the school, headmaster’s house, boarding house and lodge was undertaken by Morris and Hebson, who had previously designed the Grammar School at Wimborne Minster in a similar style.

The lodge and gate screen are of definite quality and form a significant group of mid-19th century school buildings, utilizing a combination of red brick, burnt header diapering and stone dressings.