Dunchurch Lodge

Country house with adjoining dining room and service buildings. The main house and service buildings were constructed in 1906–07 by architect Gilbert Fraser of Liverpool for John Lancaster. The dining room was added in 1950–52 by Press & Wright of Rugby for the English Electric Company. The building has undergone mid and late 20th-century alterations.

The house is built of red brick with ashlar dressings and hipped Westmoreland slate roofs. It features coped brick ridge and side wall stacks. The architectural style is Renaissance Revival, evoking circa 1700. The design incorporates a plinth, quoins, and dentillated eaves. Windows are mainly stone mullioned cross-casements with leaded glazing. Dormers contain glazing bar casements with alternating gabled and segmental pediments. The building is two storeys plus basement and attics, arranged in an L-plan with dimensions of three by five bays.

The entrance front is symmetrical and features a stone porte-cochere with columns and elliptical arches flanked by double pilasters. The owner's monogram, wreaths and swags are displayed above. A plain central opening frames panelled double doors, flanked by single windows, with three windows above. On each side stands a canted bay window of two storeys with five lights, and above each rises a five-light dormer. To the right lies the dining room, a single-storey structure of three bays with a central seven-light window featuring Renaissance ornament to the lintel, flanked by canted bay windows with five lights and a similar bay window to the north.

The garden front to the south is asymmetrical, featuring canted bay windows in alternate bays with five-light windows between those on the left. To the right, a stone-faced entrance bay contains a round-arched doorway under a hood carried on Doric columns, a double keystone, and a half-glazed panelled door with sidelights. Above this is a five-light window with swags and festoons to the lintel, and five-light dormers above again. The west end comprises a single bay with a four-light window on each floor and a dormer above, plus an additional single light on the first floor to the left. The north side has four three-light windows and three dormers, and to the right a single-storey flat-roofed projection.

The west front is symmetrical, comprising three bays. It features an enriched pedimented doorcase with an elongated double keystone and half-glazed door. Above stands a tall double-transomed window, and above that a round-arched window with sidelights under a pediment. On each side are canted bay windows of three storeys, each with three lights per floor, cornices and half-round pediments. The former pool court is crossed by a late 20th-century external corridor.

The service buildings comprise a double-gabled range with a large external stack and a yard enclosed by a wall containing minor buildings, including a pyramid-roofed game larder.

The entrance hall features fielded panelled dado, dentillated cornice and heavily enriched panelled ceiling, with an original stone fireplace having a moulded surround. The drawing room contains a heavily enriched frieze, dentillated cornice and enriched panelled ceiling, an enriched doorcase with segmental pediment, and an 18th-century inlaid marble fireplace with figurative panel. The morning room, facing south, has a cornice. The billiard room is fully panelled and includes an inglenook with wooden Ionic columns and a chimneypiece with Doric columns in early 18th-century style, though it retains a late 20th-century suspended ceiling. The original dining room to the east front has panelled dado, exposed joists and a Classical-style wooden fireplace flanked by two-panel doors with eared architraves. Corridors and the former gun room have cornices. The stair hall contains Ionic columns and pilasters with an enriched panelled ceiling. The open-well major stair has panelled dado, enriched panelled newels, turned balusters and moulded ramped handrail. The first-floor landing features a segmental pediment on Doric pilasters. A dogleg minor stair has square newels and stick and splat balusters. First-floor rooms and corridors have cornices and mainly original doors. The plain attics retain some original fireplaces.

Dunchurch Lodge is the outstanding centrepiece of a major estate, designed by Gilbert Fraser in collaboration with his long-time associate Thomas Mawson, the celebrated landscape architect. This represents one of their most complete surviving ensembles.