The Forge Lodges

The Forge Lodges are a pair of c1835 lodges to Mote Park, built in a rustic Greek revival style.

MATERIALS: the buildings are of rag stone block construction with brick chimney stacks and pitched slated roofs. Windows are side-hung timber casements of likely C20 date.

PLAN: the lodges flank the entrance to what was the south drive. They are one-and-a-half-storeys high, with porticoed fronts; they are one bay wide, and three bays deep. Between the buildings are two square rag stone gate piers with pyramidal caps, linked to the lodges by rag stone walls.

EXTERIOR: the principal elevations of the lodges face out of the park to the south. The gable ends of the shallow pitched roofs form the pediment over a simple entablature and arcade of four square columns with very simple two-step capitals. The recessed frontages beneath the porticos have a pilaster to either side and a central timber door. The west lodge has had a window inserted in the pediment. The long east and west elevations have a first-floor storey band and a two-step eaves cornice. The opposing east and west elevations of the two lodges (those facing onto the drive), have a range of three ground-floor windows, with a first-floor window added to the east lodge. To the rear the lodges have a single window at basement, ground, and first floor levels. The east and west elevations facing onto the buildings' respective gardens have three windows to the first floor (two on the west lodge have been blocked), a side door, and a ground-floor window. Both lodges have a single-storey, pitch-roofed store attached to the garden elevation, that to the west lodge being continuous in footprint with the range of stores adjoining it to the north. Both lodges have a substantial yellow brick ridge stack at the centre of the roof.

INTERIOR: only the west of the two lodges was inspected internally; the interior is largely modernised, with some surviving historic joinery of a modest nature, making the interior of lesser special interest.