Roundhouse at Forest Lodge

Former lodge, built in the late C18, converted to a gardener’s cottage around 1936 to the designs of Robert Lowry FRIBA for Francis Egerton Pegler, now a house.

MATERIALS: clay tile roof, red brick walls, red brick chimneystack, and leaded casement windows.

PLAN: Octagonal in plan, with a rectangular-plan porch projecting from the west side (replaced around 2017).

EXTERIOR: the one-and-half storey house is octagonal in plan, with a central octagonal red-brick chimneystack, and steeply-sloped plain clay tile roof. Each of the north, east, south and west slopes of the roof have a dormer window clad with hanging clay tiles (introduced around 1936). The walls of the ground floor are constructed of red brick laid in Scottish bond. A gabled porch was added to the west elevation around 2017, replacing a late-C20 porch, containing a replacement timber-panelled door and metal-framed overlight of around 1936. The east elevation has a blocked door opening (from which a porch protruded on the 1886 and 1899 OS maps). The pointed-arch metal-framed casement windows of the ground-floor (of around 1806) and first-floor leaded casement windows (of around 1936) were replaced with pointed-arch timber-framed casements around 2017.

INTERIOR: the ground floor, reconfigured around 1936, comprises a living room to the west side, and a corridor running east to a stair, off which there is a dining room to the south (formerly a kitchen), and a kitchen to the north (formerly a scullery). The dining room retains an Art-Deco style fireplace of around 1936, and has been covered for safety reasons. The U-plan stair, inserted around 1936, has a plain concrete closed balustrade and leads to the first floor landing, off which there is a main bedroom to the west, a bathroom to the north (formerly a linen cupboard) and a second bedroom to the south. The internal doors were replaced around 2017 in the same style as the 1930s doors they replaced.