Former Wolverton Park Keeper'S Lodge, Wolverton Park

Former Wolverton Park Keeper's Lodge, Wolverton Park

A park keeper's lodge built in 1885, probably designed in-house by the London & North Western Railway. The building is constructed in brick (some elevations now painted), with timber framing and tile-hanging to the first floor, and a red tile roof with ornamental ridge tiles.

The lodge is planned as a squat L-shape with a porch set in the re-entrant angle. It is two storeys tall, featuring a projecting gabled front façade with a bay window to the ground floor. Above this is a jettied window with a long four-light window to the first floor. The timber-framed first floor and gable are surmounted by two small attic windows. To the left stands a single-storey porch with hipped tile roof, positioned between the gabled front and a short gabled range projecting leftward. This left-hand range has a timber-framed first floor and gable. The opposite gable on the right side of the building also features a timber-framed first floor with a tile-hung gable. A tall brick stack rises from the centre of the roof, and a prominent lateral stack to the rear of the building bears a decorative plaque showing an urn. At the rear, slightly left of the chimney, is a timber-framed jettied projection on the first floor. A flat-roofed single-storey extension to the right side is of no architectural interest.

The interior has not been inspected, but reports and photographs suggest relatively little alteration, with surviving original fireplaces, joinery, and staircase.

To the front is a low brick wall, and iron railings are positioned to the side.

Wolverton grew rapidly after the London & North Western Railway established its works here in 1838, at a midway point between London and Birmingham where engines could conveniently be changed. Locomotives were manufactured here until 1861, after which carriage building became the principal activity. By 1886 the works covered 37 acres and employed 2,000 workers; by 1907 these figures had more than doubled and remained at these levels until the early 1960s. The workforce was reduced to under 1,000 by 1986, and the works are now largely vacant with some demolition having taken place. Wolverton was incorporated into the new town of Milton Keynes in 1967, though it has retained its individual identity despite substantial redevelopment.

Wolverton Park, an LNWR company sports ground, opened on the north-east fringe of the town in 1885. Its facilities included a football ground, running and cycling track, bowling green, and grandstand. The lodge at the park entrance dates from 1885 and forms part of the original scheme.

The lodge, executed in the Old English style, is directly comparable with examples at Queen's Park, Crewe (another LNWR town), already listed at grade II. Despite the ground floor being part-painted (originally probably bare brick) and the presence of an extension to one side, the lodge is generally little altered. Wolverton's sports ground is reckoned among the finest surviving Victorian company sports grounds in England, ranking alongside examples of 1887 and 1889 at Bournville and Port Sunlight. The lodge is an integral part of that scheme.