Sharsted Lodge

Sharsted Lodge is a small lodge built around 1875 in the Jacobethan Revival style. It served as the former north lodge to Sharsted Court. The building is constructed of brick with timber framing and tile roofs.

The lodge has a small T-shaped plan with an additional porch to the east and a twentieth-century single-storey lean-to extension to the west. It contains three rooms upstairs and three rooms downstairs. The pitched tiled roof features a central tall chimney stack with linked decorated chimneys in red brick. The upper floor is half-timbered, and shallow jettied gables to the north and south are decorated with carved barge boards.

The most distinctive feature is the lavishly carved east oriel window with a balcony under its own pitched roof. The carving is exceptionally detailed, including two panels beneath the window decorated with Hippocamps (mythological creatures with horse heads and serpentine tails that were companions of Neptune), and three heads beneath the foliate columns that possibly represent Neptune or other water gods. Two identical beasts form brackets supporting the window; these are possibly Simurghs, a mythical Persian guardian and healing creature depicted with a dog head and bird body. The front door is in the east elevation and is protected by a porch with a pitched tiled roof and decorative barge boards. The door furniture is cast iron in an Arts and Crafts style. Windows throughout are diamond-leaded casements.

Inside, the front door opens into a hall containing a central wooden staircase with turned spindles leading to the first floor. Fireplaces appear in all rooms except the rear bathroom and kitchen. Those in the bedrooms appear original, with wooden mantles and iron grates. Wooden plank doors and internal wooden partitioning appear to be original. Two back doors open off the kitchen, although only the southern one remains functional.

Census records and historic maps indicate that the lodge was constructed between 1871 and 1881. By 1881, John and Sarah Anne Knight and three children were resident. Chapman Faunce-de-Laune, who then owned Sharsted Court, is presumed to have commissioned the lodge at the northern entrance to his estate. The Court was extended during the 1880s, and various improvements were made to the estate at the same time, including brick gates and walls, alterations to the stables, and the construction of a gardener's cottage to the north of the Court. The lodge and gardener's cottage are in the same style and were undoubtedly designed by the same architect. An early twentieth-century photograph shows a low hedge flanking the road and topiary within the garden. The M2 motorway now separates Sharsted Lodge from Sharsted Court.

The lodge has experienced some minor alterations but remains a high-quality example of late Victorian lodge architecture. The decorative principal elevations, particularly the elaborate and skilful carving of the east oriel window decorated with mythological beasts, are of particular note. The interior retains simple well-executed fixtures and fittings in good materials, and the three-up, three-down historic plan-form remains largely intact, its modest accommodation being typical of this type of building. The lodge is historically linked with the contemporary Grade II listed Gardener's Cottage at Sharsted Court, as both buildings were constructed in the Jacobethan style as part of late nineteenth-century enhancements to the estate.