Bestwood Lodge Hotel And Terrace Wall

Bestwood Lodge Hotel and Terrace Wall

A country house, now a hotel, dating from 1862 with additions made in 1869, 1897, and 1980. Designed by S. S. Teulon for the 10th Duke of St. Albans, with figure carvings by Thomas Earp. The building exemplifies the Gothic Revival style and represents an outstanding and complete major work by its architect.

The main structure is built in brick with gabled, hipped and pyramid slate roofs, featuring ashlar and moulded brick dressings with polychrome decoration. It rises three storeys above basements, arranged on a C-plan with five unequal bays and irregular facades. The roofscape includes three gable stacks, five ridge stacks and six side wall stacks, all complemented by elaborate corbelled eaves. Traceried balustrades and gabled dormers characterise the design.

The main west front features an off-centre tower porch with pierced flanking buttresses topped with finials. The porch door is moulded and pointed with flanking shafts. To the left stands a single storey link with a gabled glazed roof and slate verges. A Diocletian window with a hipped hood appears to the west, while to the east is a flat roofed bay window beyond which extends a lean-to corridor containing three lancet windows. An octagonal corner tower dating to 1897 projects at the east end, rising four stages with a pyramidal roof and irregular small lancets. Above the main porch is a canted balustraded oriel mounted on a vaulted bracket, decorated with a band of carved masks and flanked by double lancets. Above this sits a canted flat roofed bay window containing three lancets, each inscribed with panels commemorating a Royal visit in 1878. A pinnacled gabled dormer and coped gable with double lancet appear further right. The tower above carries a single lancet and is crowned by a pyramidal roof with four gabled lucarnes and a finial.

The chapel and service range extends northward, featuring a crow stepped west gable and a bell turret with spire. This range includes a double lancet window and, above it, three smaller lancets. An adjacent lower buttressed range comprises three bays with nine small lancets. To its right stands a square tower with stepped stair lights and three small lancets on each side. A late twentieth-century porch has been inserted to its left, with four sashes above and two large dormers positioned further right. The west gable displays a quadruple lancet with transom bearing heraldic panels.

The north side contains a square corner tower with an adjoining gabled game larder. To its right extends a two-storey wing with a hipped roof. A buttressed chapel range follows, topped by a five-light mullioned and transomed casement window, with nine unequally spaced sashes above and seven sashes on the next level. A notable external stack bears a datestone inscribed: "This house was commenced AD 1862 by William Amelius Aubrey De Vere Beauclerk, 10th Duke of St. Albans, on the site of a Hunting Lodge of King Edward IIIrd. and was completed AD 1865. Samuel Saunders Teulon, Architect. James Burford, Clerk of Works." Beyond this stack stands a double lancet, with a crow stepped gable flanked by two dormers above.

The courtyard's south side features a late nineteenth-century buttressed drill hall of five bays with a timber-framed first floor and dormers. The south side of this structure contains five mullioned casements, and its east end displays a figure-carved panel above a centrally positioned Tudor arched door. The late nineteenth-century orangery stands to the right with a full-width balustraded addition added in 1980. Its crow stepped west gable features a canted bay window, and the south side contains seven twentieth-century casements.

The house's south front displays irregular Gothic fenestration. To the left stands a lean-to porch, with a large triple lancet stair window positioned above it to the right. A square bay window containing a triple lancet on each floor extends further right, followed by a half-round hipped turret also rising three storeys with lancet windows on each level. A corner tower stands at the far right, fenestrated with four lancets on each floor and a gabled lancet above the second floor. The irregular gabled east front includes a wing with a balustraded bay window containing four sashes. To its right extends a balustraded stair turret with two tiers of stepped lancets, followed by a projecting bay with a triple lancet on each floor and a square corner tower. Above this point the fenestration becomes markedly irregular, combining sashes, lancets and mullioned casements with multiple gables and lancet dormers. A niche within the tower to the right contains a full-size figure.

The interior includes a vaulted porch and entrance hall with moulded doorways featuring shafts and carved tympani. The square central hall showcases early twentieth-century oak panelling. Its north side contains a central Gothic fireplace with single flanking niches housing heraldic animals, while the west side displays a central niche containing a relief of Robin Hood. The east side features a three-bay arcade with ringed marble piers and moulded arches with hood moulds. Panelled galleries with foliate iron balustrades extend around the south, east and west sides at the level above, supported by arch brackets on corbels. The upper level repeats the three-bay arcade arrangement on east and west sides. Above again, the ceiling is carried on traceried arch brackets and corbels, with an octagonal lantern rising from the centre, featuring a traceried panelled drum and octagonal pendant. A wrought iron hanging lamp is suspended within. The Gold Room to the south features a half-round bay beneath a pointed arch carried on a freestanding pier, with a panelled matchboarded ceiling painted with rosettes. The orangery is vaulted with iron ribs. Other principal rooms feature pierced cornices and matchboard ceilings. A stone cantilevered dogleg main stair with wrought iron balustrade and square iron newels rises within.

Outside, to the east and south, an L-shaped rockfaced ashlar terrace wall extends approximately 60 metres. The east side includes central double stairs flanked by curved brick walls.