Top Lodge Including Front Boundary Fence

TQ 64 SW 5/219

CAPEL CASTLE HILL, SOMERHILL PARK Top Lodge including front boundary fence

II

Lodge to Somerhill Park. Circa 1880. Ground floor level is coursed sandstone ashlar, exposed timber-framing above; brick stack with tall diagonally-set brick chimneyshafts; red tile roof.

Plan: Uneven T-plan house. Main block faces east onto the drive to Somerhill (q.v.). It has an entrance hall with the stair to right behind a 2-storey porch and room to left has rear lateral stack which also serves one-room plan kitchen to rear.

2 storeys with single storey kitchen block.

Exterior: Tudor style. Irregular 1:1-window front. Doorway to right has a Tudor arch and contains a plain plank door. It is behind a 2 storey porch. It is open at ground floor level supported on plain posts with Tudor arch. Room above is jettied and gabled and contains a mullioned canted bay window with a solid moulded sill. To left the ground floor room has a 3-light window. The original windows contain rectangular panes of leaded glass and iron-framed casements. First floor is jettied but contains no window; slender framing with straight tension braces. Roof is gable-ended and all gables have original cusped bargeboards. Left (south) is also jettied and the first floor window is another canted bay like that in the front porch.

Interior: Not inspected.

Narrow front garden is still fenced by original timber railings.

Top Lodge is one of a number of good late C19 buildings built by the Goldsmid family on the Somerhill Estate.

Listing NGR: TQ6079544228