Monument Lodges, Gate Piers And Screen, Trentham Gardens

The Monument Lodges, gatepiers and screen by Joseph Pickford of Derby, built around 1775.

MATERIALS: the lodges are constructed in ashlar; the extensions are of painted brick. The roofs of the lodges are of slate, as is the roof of the north-eastern extension. The southern extension is tile-roofed. There is a modern, glass-canopied extension between the lodges.

PLAN: the structure comprises gate piers, a screen, lodges and flanking extensions. Two large, square gate piers are on either side of the road with a screen with arched pedestrian entrances attaching the piers to two lodges. C19 extensions have been added flanking the lodges.

EXTERIOR: the lodges are Palladian in style with each having a dentilled pediment and a large, round-arched recess containing and a blind occulus above a six-over-six sash window. A string course runs at first-floor level, continuing across the screens and the gate piers. The string course acts as coping to the screens and is raised over the segmental arch of each pedestrian gateway.

The gate piers are large in proportion to their accompanying lodges. Each has a niche, a panel above the string course and a moulded cap.

The mid-C19 extensions flank the lodges. They do not continue the Palladian architectural style, instead being of Victorian domestic style. Having a single-storey outshut to a main two-storey building, the extensions roughly mirror each other, but the fenestration size and arrangement differs, as does the location of the chimneys. Both have casement windows.