Top Lodge

RALPH ALLEN DRIVE 656-1/67/1366 (East side) 11/08/72 Top Lodge Formerly Listed as: RALPH ALLEN DRIVE Lodge and Gate Posts)

GV II

Lodge to Prior Park. c1740 (appears on Thorp Map of 1742). Probably by John Wood the Elder. MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, double Roman tile roof. EXTERIOR: A small gabled single depth lodge, immediately adjacent to gatepiers (qv) giving to North Road. Main front, to north, with two oval windows above a Palladian window with plain mullion pilasters and full entablature and with glazing bar sashes. Ground floor treated as a 'rustick' or basement, with a trio of arched windows with keystones and impost band, with small-pane casements; the central window is wider than outer ones. Full height channelled pilaster quoins; moulded eaves band. Gables not coped; each has an ashlar chimney stack in the form of a pedestal. To right, beneath the continuous deeply moulded plat band, is a single storey wing with glazed door and large twelve-pane sash. The right return is faced in rubble, with a central arched light with broad impost band; beyond the wing is a wall extending as far as one of gate piers, with arched light to keystone and impost. The rubble-faced rear has a small square light in the centre immediately below the eaves band. INTERIOR: Not inspected. HISTORY: This lodge is very similar in design to that at the corner to Church Street (qv The Lodge), at the north (or bottom) end of the Prior Park estate. Its distinctive architectural vocabulary would have announced the traveller's arrival at a very distinctive enclave. SOURCE: Gillian Clarke, `Prior Park. A Compleat Landscape¿ (Bath 1987), 40. Listing NGR: ST7608362678