Oulton Lodge

1929/0/10004 18-AUG-03

OULTON OULTON LODGE

II

Farmhouse. c. 1860-5 for the 8th Marquis of Lothian of Blickling Hall. Red brick; machine tiled roofs with some plaintiles. Brick stacks with ornamental flues. Elizabethan Revival style. EXTERIOR: east, entrance, facade of 2 storeys; 3-window range. Central projection consists of an open porch with 2 plain columns with concave-sided star capitals supporting a moulded cornice. The porch inner side walls with small-framed panelling. 6-panel fielded door with an overlight and side lights. The upper floor of the porch is taken as a room, with exposed timber studwork and one 2-light mullioned window. Timber cartouche over the window. Cusped and sub-cusped bargeboards with apical pinnacle. Main walls lit through 3-light mullioned cross casements to ground floor within stone architraves and 2-light mullioned windows to the first floor, the latter under cusped and sub-cusped bargeboards as before, extending through the eaves line. 2 twin-flued stacks symmetrically arranged, with chevron, diaper, spiral and billet decoration to the shafts; star tops. The south return with a bay window under a hipped roof, fitted with single- and 3-light cross casements. Rear wing: south elevation in 2 storeys, the upper storey being lit through 2 through-eaves dormers. 2-window range of 2-light casements and a central 6-panelled door under a segmental gauged skewback arch. Internal gable-end stack to the north. The north return of this wing with 2 2-light casements to each floor. North return with a full-height outshut against the rear wing and a gabled 2-storey staircase tower. INTERIOR: reception rooms to the east with 6-panelled and moulded doors, the panels arranged in 2 tiers of 3. Ground-floor north-east room with marble chimneypiece and 5-panelled rising shutters to the east window. South-east room with horizontally-sliding window shutters to the east, of 2 panels, and rising shutters to the south bay window. Timber chimneypiece with dentilation, a guilloche cornice and a Greek urn motif in the centre of the frieze. Ceiling with 2 timber bridging beams and beading to the plasterwork forming rectilinear panels. Closed-string staircase with splat balusters with expanded bases and tops, moulded handrail and tapering splat newels. Service rooms to rear with plainer 6-panelled doors. Former dairy to the north-west with 2 dairy bench arches. First floor with 4-panel doors. Oulton Lodge is an attractive farmhouse built in 1860-65 for the Blickling estate, using distinctive estate features of the date, such as the star-topped Tudor stacks, the use of half-timbering, 6-panel doors arranged in 2 tiers of 3, and combinations of window shutter types in the same rooms. The simple staircase design is in advance of national taste. Although there has been some modernisation in the C20 the house remains substantially as it was built.