Chandos Lodge

Chandos Lodge

A hunting lodge, now house, built in 1663 for Sir Thomas Bridges. The building was altered and extended in the mid-18th century, with further minor alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was undergoing complete re-ordering at the time of listing.

The building consists of a square block of the original 17th-century lodge with lower mid-18th-century rectangular flanking wings and two rear extensions at the northern angle, arranged on a double-depth plan with a right-hand front stair hall.

The exterior is rendered with colourwash over rubble, with ashlar dressings to windows and a plain wooden eaves cornice. The roof is covered in 20th-century double Roman tile and hipped, with a rendered central stack.

The south-east facade features a central 2-storey and attic block with a 2-window range, flanked by lower 2-storey, 1-window wings. The central range has a doorway to the left-hand in a deep reveal with a 19th-century panelled door. Windows are mostly 20th-century top-opening casements, except for an upper left-hand opening which is a 19th-century plate-glass sash with central single glazing bars. A mid-20th-century rectangular dormer with 2-light top-opening casements is positioned centrally. The left-hand wing has a late-19th-century canted ashlar bay with cornice and plate-glass sashes to the ground floor, and a 19th-century 2-light plate-glass sash above. The right-hand wing has an early-18th-century 12/12-pane sash to the ground floor and a 20th-century casement to the upper floor. The north-east front (rear) has a round-arched 18th-century sash to the stairwell and an early-18th-century 12/12-pane sash to the left-hand on the first floor with thick glazing bars, alongside an inserted late-20th-century doorway to the centre.

The interior retains several important features. The central ground-floor room to the south has a mid-17th-century moulded beam and cornice. The ground-floor south-west room has a mid-18th-century plain moulding to the cornice, although other features on this floor have been removed. A robustly-moulded mid-17th-century open-well oak staircase rises through three floors to the attic, with an uncut string, bulbous finials, pendentives to newel posts, and blind baluster panelling.

The Great Parlour of the original lodge, located on the first floor to the south-east, is the most significant interior space. It contains a fine plaster chimneypiece and overmantel in contemporary colouring, dated 1663. The original fireplace opening has a 4-centred arch with a shield charged with the Bridges and Rodney arms, flanked by pilasters of wreathed scroll decoration. The overmantel carries the Stuart coat of arms flanked by the Prince of Wales feathers and the Thistle. To the left of the chimneypiece are three heraldic murals of the Bridges and Rodney family; two further murals appear to the right-hand, though the one above the doorway to the wing was mutilated by recent restructuring of the lintel. Some remains of 18th-century panelling and trompe l'oeil plaster decoration survive.

The building is of significant historical importance as the only survivor of the Bridges' estate. It is dramatically sited on an outcrop of Pennant stone commanding views over the river Avon and the Keynsham Hams. The Bridges family occupied the Great House next to the Parish Church, and Sir Thomas Bridges built this hunting lodge to the east of the mansion, overlooking the game-rich marshy flats by the river; his deer park was situated to the west. Originally called The Lodge and later Lodge Farm, it became Chandos Lodge when the property passed to the Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos in the early 18th century. The wall paintings, which remain at risk during the extensive re-ordering, represent the building as a fine, though late, example of a rare building type containing elaborate interior fittings and painted decoration.