Beresford Lodge

Beresford Lodge

A former gatelodge, later house, built between 1836 and 1841 by Alexander Roos for the Beresford family of Bedgebury Park, serving as the north lodge. Roos, who lived circa 1810–1881, was a pupil of Karl Friedrich Schinkel in Berlin and came to England in 1835. The building is designed in a pared-down Schinkelesque version of the Italianate style.

The lodge is constructed in sandstone ashlar with a pyramidal tiled roof, renewed in the late twentieth century, featuring wide overhanging eaves on wooden brackets. A stone chimneystack with plain triple circular chimneypots rises from the north side of the tower, surmounted by an elaborate metal weathervane.

The original structure comprises a square two-storey tower with attics and an open loggia to the south facing the carriage drive, plus a one-storey north-side wing of two bays. The south-facing tower has a plinth and two stringcourses carried across the side wings to form parapet cornices, with similar stringcourses to the compressed attic storey. The attic originally had three circular windows, though the central one has been replaced by a larger wooden casement. The first floor features a French window with cornice and console brackets, though the French windows have been replaced. Above the ground-floor loggia sits a balcony with four piers divided by wrought-iron railings with intersecting rods and central paterae.

The ground-floor loggia has three round-headed arches with keystones and impost blocks, now filled with twentieth-century French windows. Within the loggia is a wooden ovolo-moulded cornice, original architrave with double French windows, and a hexagonal tiled floor.

The west side of the tower displays three circular attic windows, a paired round-headed window with keystones and impost blocks on the first floor, and a twelve-pane sash window on the ground floor with moulded architrave; first-floor casements are twentieth-century replacements. The original one-storey section to the north retains three piers of balustrading, though the iron balustrade was replaced by two windows in the 1990s. Two ground-floor round-headed sash windows in reveals with impost blocks were reduced in height during the 1990s.

The east elevation of the tower has three blocked circular attic openings, a paired round-headed window on the first floor with keystone and impost blocks, replaced first-floor casements, and a twelve-pane sash window at ground level. The one-storey northern section has a round-headed sash window which was reduced in height when the 1990s extension was added. The north extension, dating from 1991–92, projects above the original parapet height and features three south and east-facing windows, sashes with some vertical glazing bars, and a central French window to the east.

The interior contains a plain straight-flight staircase. Some ground-floor windows retain wooden shutters, and ground-floor French windows to the loggia remain, though all other ground-floor doors have been replaced. No original fireplaces survive.

Beresford Lodge was built as the entrance lodge to Bedgebury Park during a major remodelling of the estate between 1836 and 1841. Alexander Roos became responsible for work on several properties owned by the Beresford Hope family after arriving in England in 1835, including The Deepdene near Dorking in Surrey (1835–41, now demolished), Bedgebury Park (1836–41), and 4 Carlton Gardens (circa 1836–7). The Bedgebury Park estate was purchased by the Beresfords in 1836, partly funded by Lady Beresford's inheritance from her deceased first husband, Thomas Hope. Roos enlarged and re-cased the existing house as an Italianate palazzo.

The lodge's tower may have been used by the keeper to signal the main house about approaching visitors. It adjoins separately listed gates, piers, and quadrant walls by the same architect. The lodge bears similarities to a Roos drawing for the Gardener's House at Deepdene (probably not executed) and strong similarities to Ipswich Lodge at Shrubland Park in Suffolk, built in 1841, which features the same square tower with pyramidal roof, circular attic windows, paired round-headed windows, and front arcaded porch.

In the late nineteenth century, a single-storey sandstone ashlar lean-to was added to the north. The lodge came into separate ownership from the main house in the 1920s. In 1972–73, a first-floor extension was built over the north loggia, contained within the parapet height, which dropped the ground-floor ceiling height and reduced the heights of the arched windows and masonry surrounds. The lean-to was altered and a single-storey extension added to the east. In 1988, an additional first-floor extension was added to match the 1973 extension. In 1991–92, the deteriorating 1973 and 1988 extensions were demolished and replaced with a considerably larger and higher north and north-east extension, which is not of special interest.