Lodge and gate piers at Anstey Hall

Lodge and Gate Piers at Anstey Hall

This decorative lodge and its associated gate piers were built in 1865, positioned in the north-east corner of the west courtyard and facing north onto Maris Lane. The building is constructed in red brick laid in Flemish bond with polychromatic dressings of red and gault brick, and covered with a slate roof.

The lodge is a highly ornamental example of Ruskinian Gothic architecture, asymmetrical in plan with one and a half storeys beneath a steeply pitched roof hipped on all sides. Half-hipped gables on the north and west sides feature bargeboards forming wide trefoil arches punctuated by roundels of deeply carved floral motifs. Tall triple chimney stacks with oversailing brick eaves rise from the roof centre.

Windows are mostly pairs of narrow casements with gault brick mullions and blocked jambs (echoing the quoins), with stone lintels and cills. Polychromatic shallow pointed relieving arches sit above the windows. The principal north elevation is stepped back from Maris Lane behind a small entrance yard enclosed by a low brick wall and iron railings with banded brick square piers and an iron gate decorated with flowers. The entrance is laid in red and black tiles in a carreaux d'octagone pattern and is recessed behind a pair of wide semi-circular arches of banded brick. The central pier takes the form of a stone column surmounted by a capital embellished with flowers carved in high relief. Above is a decorative stone roundel containing a carved foliate round-lobed trefoil bearing a shield inscribed with the date 1865 and initials AFF. Three single windows light the ground floor, with a pair of windows in the gable head lighting the upper floor.

Adjoining the right side is a door set within a similarly styled archway. Attached is one of a pair of substantial square gate piers with moulded stone caps, leading into the west courtyard; the other gate pier is attached to the cart shed. A small yard on the west side is enclosed by a low brick wall with a gault brick plinth, curved coping with a sawtooth cornice, and regularly spaced piers. The west elevation features an archway on the left providing access to the yard, and a pair of windows in the gable head.

The rear south elevation has a pair of ground-floor windows and two hipped gable dormer windows of different sizes with decorative bargeboards. A projecting single-storey range under a pitched roof, probably originally housing service rooms, occupies the right side. Its four-panelled door has blocked quoins, a chamfered lintel and relieving arch, flanked by a sash window to the left and a casement window to the right with similar dressings.

The east elevation comprises a tall single-storey projection of gault brick (facing into the secondary east courtyard) with a steeply pitched half-hipped roof sweeping down very low on each pitch. It has a plank door with a cambered brick arch and oculus above, flanked by very narrow openings which have been bricked up.

The interior has been extensively modernised and is understood to retain no historic fixtures or fittings. The building is currently in use as domestic accommodation.