Bradwell Lodge

Bradwell Lodge is a house of considerable architectural and historical importance, combining a late medieval core with an elegant 18th-century addition. The original building is a timber-framed structure dating to the 15th or 16th century, originally part of a moated manor house with two lower ranges extending to the rear. This north wing is pargetted (decorative plastered) and topped with a red plain tile roof, half-hipped to the right, with two red brick chimney stacks serving the two storeys and attics. The windows are predominantly 17th-century work: a range of three openings featuring leaded casements of two or three lights, with a tripartite small-paned vertically sliding sash to the ground floor right. Single ranges of similar windows light the returns, while the central rear range has a 19th-century board door with light beneath a flat canopy on brackets, two segmental-headed windows, and a four-panelled door to its west face.

The south wing, built around 1785 by architect John Johnson for Reverend Sir Henry Bate-Dudley, is constructed of white-painted brick with stucco bands, plinths, and parapets. This structure rises to two storeys with a belvedere and cellars. A single-storey entrance hall, articulated with cornice and band ornament and an oval patera, links the two wings. The entrance hall features a central round-headed doorway with double three-panelled doors and a traceried light above; the rear face has a simpler six-panelled door and a vertically sliding sash window.

The west face of the 18th-century building displays two storeys beneath a parapet, with a first-floor range of three vertically sliding sashes with glazing bars, the two southernmost being false windows. Below is a Palladian window to the ground floor, flanked by round-headed alcoves containing lidded urns on plinths and ornamented with lion masks to the frieze. The south face, under a stucco parapet with band and plinth, contains five vertically sliding sashes with glazing bars on the first floor. Two further sashes with round heads and moulded cills flank the central single-storey semi-circular library bay, which features moulded base and frieze, three tall round-headed windows, and a central window giving garden access approached by five semi-circular steps with moulded bases and foliate capitals to pilasters. The east (rear) face shows three window openings, with only the first-floor right light remaining unblocked; a buttress stands to the right. The central oval belvedere, with angled bays to north and south, is glazed with vertically sliding sashes and embellished with a moulded and dentilled frieze, circular columns with moulded capitals and bases, and pilasters with moulded capitals and bases; the four chimneys are encased within the angle pilasters.

Interior of the original range: The library contains heavily moulded and stop-chamfered ceiling beams of 15th or 16th-century date, with arcades of two columns bearing moulded capitals and bases. Bookcases display Adamesque decoration, possibly from Langford Grove, Langford. Seventeenth-century panelling appears on the stairs and in several rooms. Moulded and chamfered bridging joists occur throughout most rooms. One bedroom retains four cut pieces of carved wood, including one depicting a man's head, now fixed to the walls. Solid braces remain visible tying the principal beams. The roof shows evidence of two construction phases: two bays of crown post construction (the arms now cut away where exposed) followed by two bays of framed side purlins with arched braces.

Interior of the 18th-century building: The entrance hall features two domed ceilings with lights—the western dome being smaller—each embellished with four moulded roundels. Stone flooring and stone steps flanked by iron railings lead to the stairwell, which displays iron balusters of anthemion-terminated S-curves with two straight balusters between, and a wreathed handrail, all beneath a moulded frieze. The southeast oval library, opposite a panelled entrance door, is flanked by drawing rooms and lit by a tall three-light bay window. Four bookcases line the library, those flanking the door bearing moulded cast iron plates (one a fireplace, one a blank matching piece) beneath. A moulded frieze completes the room. The southwest drawing room contains a white marble fireplace with coloured insets and a frieze bearing four round and three rectangular paintings believed to be by Angelica Kaufmann. The ceiling is plastered with seven painted panels by Robert Smirke the elder. Throughout the building are marble fireplaces and mouldings believed to be by Robert Adam, most with moulded cast iron surrounds. Five or six-panelled doors, mostly with moulded architraves, appear throughout; panelled shutters serve the windows, and moulded wainscots, friezes, and cornices ornament the rooms. The entrance to the belvedere is through a dado-height door curved to match the room, with a small firegrate and some original glazing surviving. The cellars, said to have served as servants' quarters with servants' bells still in place, were not accessible at the time of re-survey.

Reverend Sir Henry Bate-Dudley was a journalist and friend of Gainsborough and Garrick, and was an advocate of agricultural improvement who reclaimed 250 acres of marshland and pioneered hollow drainage systems on heavy land.