Red Lodge And Attached Rubble Walls And Entrance Steps

Red Lodge is a house dating to circa 1589, originally built for Sir John Younge. It was altered in the 18th century and restored in the early 20th century by CFW Dening. The house is constructed of red rubble with limestone dressings, ashlar stacks, and a pantile hipped roof. Originally a 16th-century house, it was remodelled in the 18th century to a double-depth plan. It has three storeys and a basement and a three-window front.

The symmetrical garden front features ashlar quoins, horizontal strings to each floor, and timber modillion brackets supporting the overhanging eaves. The raised ground floor has an arcade of three semicircular arches, originally an open verandah, now linked by an ovolo impost band with ashlar aprons. The aprons feature a central half-glazed door and outer 12/9-pane sashes with thick ovolo-moulded glazing bars. The first floor has tall paired 12/12-pane sash windows with moulded architraves, and the second floor has smaller single windows with 4/4-pane sashes. Shallow side projections are present, and the rear elevation exhibits exposed timber-frames to 12/12-pane sashes, along with rubble quoins. A late 18th-century limestone ashlar porch provides the street entrance, featuring an architrave to a door with four flush panels.

The interior retains very fine late 16th-century joinery, plasterwork, and fireplaces, alongside early 18th-century joinery. The Great Oak Room is largely original, fully panelled with fluted pilasters to a dado, panels with semicircular arches to a cornice, pedimented doorways, semicircular-arched doors, a porch with paired Ionic columns, heraldic panels and figures. A fine fireplace features paired fluted columns to a cornice, and paired terms to the overmantel with strapwork panels; it also has a strapwork plaster ceiling with pendents. A large, early 18th-century open-well stair has fluted column newels, triple barleysugar balusters, a wide surtail, and a moulded, ramped handrail. The C18 reception rooms were formed by enclosing the garden verandah, and are panelled with good fireplaces. A stone staircase leads to the street entrance, with a 16-panel door at the base. A New Oak Room contains panelling and fireplaces from the Museum Reserve Collection.

Attached rubble walls surround a rear knot garden. Brick-walled steps rise from the garden, incorporating Ionic capitals, and an elliptical arch leads to the front. The building was originally constructed as a lodge for Younge’s Great House, which was destroyed in 1863. Modernisation occurred circa 1730, during which the garden verandah was enclosed and mullion windows were replaced. The interior is exceptionally fine, featuring some of the most important panelling in the country.