Smoothyway Lodge

CHUDLEIGH SX 87 NE 4/3 Smoothway Lodge 23.8.55 II

Lodge to Ugbrooke House, formerly the game keeper's Cottage. Early C19. Rowan suggests that the design may be by Capability Brown, who undertook the landscaping of Ugbrooke Park or by William Spring, the clerk of works for the rebuilding of the house at Ugbrooke Park or Joseph Rowe, the architect of the stables. However, the date appears to be C19 rather than C18. Stone rubble faced with split larch poles; hipped thatched roof carried down as a verandah on posts across the front and returning for 1 bay as either end; central brick stack with 4 shafts. Picturesque rustic design; single-storey and attic, each ground floor room heated from the central stack with an angle fireplace across the inner corner of each room. Direct entry into the right hand front room which is larger than the others. Small lean-tos to left and right, the left lean-to is probably a later addition but thatched and partly clad with split larch poles; the right hand lean-to is late C20, concrete block with a corrugated plastic roof. Symmetrical 2-window front with a thatched verandah carried on 4 posts to the front and extending as far as the lean-tos on the left and right return. Central arched doorway with an arched plank and stud front door below an oval pattern of split logs. On either side of the front door a 3-light window with arched lights, 6-pane per light below a triangular section of split logs in a decorative pattern. 2 similar windows on the left return, 1 on the right return, cobbled floor to verandah. Interior Very plain, stairs to attic against rear wall with access from rear right room. The only conventionally picturesque lodge to Ugbrooke Park and a remarkably pretty and complete example of its type.

Listing NGR: SX8782578612