The Lodge

The Lodge

This is the entrance lodge to Stoke Hall, very likely built in 1852–1853 to the designs of Anthony Salvin.

The building is constructed of red brick laid in English bond, with applied timber framing to the upper floor and infill panels of herringbone brickwork. The dressings are of rubbed brick and the roof is covered with plain clay tiles.

The lodge is located on the eastern side of the main road into Norwich. Its original plan is approximately T-shaped, consisting of two ranges aligned east-west and north-south, with a projecting gabled entrance bay on the south elevation. A two-storey extension was added to the north-west angle between 1928 and 1971 in a similar style. An attached low red brick wall with half-round brick coping encloses the front garden to the south-east in a quarter circle.

The two-storey building is designed in a picturesque Tudor style with irregular elevations and close studding on the first floor. The steeply pitched roofs have capped angle ridge tiles and wide, plain wooden bargeboards. Two chimneystacks with oversailing, staggered brick courses rise from the slope and the east gable end of the east-west range. The fenestration consists of moulded timber mullioned and transomed windows. Those on the ground floor are set under shallow segmental arches of gauged brick, whilst the first-floor oriel windows are supported by substantial carved brackets.

The entrance on the south elevation sits within an elaborate two-storey gabled bay with a half-hipped roof and a jettied first floor featuring drop finials in a faceted acorn design. The first floor is lit by a six-light oriel window and is supported by low brick walls and a row of elaborate timber posts in the Jacobean style, carved in the shape of inverted and truncated pyramids with the upper sections linked to form an arcade. The porch floor is laid in black and red chequerboard tiles, and the front door is made of vertical panels with fillets under a shallow segmental arch of gauged brick. To the left, the ground floor is lit by an eight-light window, and to the right is the gable end of the north-south range with a jettied first floor lit by an eight-light oriel window.

On the west elevation, the right-hand bay is the gable end of the east-west range, also with a jettied first floor lit by an eight-light oriel window and the same drop finials. The ground floor is dominated by a large fifteen-light canted bay window. The left bay belongs to the later extension, built in a similar style, with an eight-light ground-floor window and a large four-light square oriel window on the first floor positioned across the eaves. The left return of the extension, forming the north elevation, has close studding on the first floor infilled with rendered panels. Both floors are lit by eight-light windows, and there is a wooden hatch with strap hinges in the gable head.

The interior retains a number of original features, including door and window furniture, ceiling joists and floorboards in at least two of the ground-floor rooms. The principal reception room to the left of the entrance, lit by the large fifteen-light window, has a stone Tudor arch fireplace with a tiled hearth, brick inset, and a hood made of tiles laid on edge. At least one of the bedrooms retains a decorative iron grate.