London Lodge, Gateway And Walls

SP9630-9730 MILTON BRYAN LONDON ROAD (B528) 12/59 London Lodge, gateway and 23.1.61 walls - II* Entrance lodge, gateway and screen walls belonging to Woburn Abbey. Straddles the boundary between the parishes of Milton Bryan and Potsgrove. 1805-10. apparently either a collaboration between Henry Holland and Humphry Repton, or a design by Holland based on Repton's ideas. For John 6th Duke of Bedford. Ashlar, partly Totternhoe clunch, partly Portland stone. Carving by Lancelot Wood. A concave structure approximately 100 metres wide, consisting of central gateway flanked by symmetrical stretches of tall curved walling. Lodge cottage forms part of and is hidden by LH wall, having small sash cut into wall. Gateway: tall central carriage arch flanked by smaller pedestrian arches, with semi-circular heads and containing cast iron gates with lattice panels. Between and flanking the arches are 4 giant order Ionic columns on pedestals. Entablature breaks forward over columns. Centre of entablature is surmounted by rectangular panel with carved relief of Bedford achievement of arms, and showing 1810, the completion date. This is flanked by pilasters in line with columns below and by carved volutes. Surmounting this panel is smaller one with carved crest, also flanked by volutes. Gateway is flanked by 2 rectangular blocks. Lower part of these and of gateway is rusticated. Halls: terminate close to road in rectangular blocks similar to those flanking gateway. Walling itself consists of panels separated by rusticated pilasters, 11 to each stretch of wall. Bedfordshire Record Office: CRT 130 Wob 42, Notes on London Entrance and Park Wall, Woburn Abbey, compiled by Marie P C Draper, Archivist to Bedford Estates, 1983.

Listing NGR: SP9633330890