Ashwell Lodge

CHUDLEIGH SX 87 NE 4/2 Ashwell Lodge -

GV II

Lodge opposite the main gateway to Ugbrooke House. Mid/late 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 style and details of the building suggest a date in the C19 not the C18. Local stone rubble with local grey limestone quoins and dressings; thatched roof, gabled at ends, replaced with tiles to the rear of the ridge; central grey limestone ashlar stack with 2 brick shafts. Double depth plan, 2 rooms wide with a central entrance, a narrow service room at the rear and a disused porch on the left return. 2 storeys. Symmetrical 2 window front with the eaves thatch rising as gables over the 2 first floor window and a central gabled thatched porch on posts with a stud and plank front door. The ground floor windows are 2-light casements with C20 leaded panes, grey ashlar cambered arches with keystones and grey ashlar jambs. Similar first floor casements have cambered heads below boarding. On the left return a thatched brick porch is clad with split logs, ground floor bow window on right return. A simple cottage design for the principal lodge at Ugbrooke, this building is important, not only to the immediate setting of the main entrance but also for the contribution it makes to the overall character of the landscape at Ugbrooke Park, designed by Capability Brown, which is remarkable for the absence of sophisticated architectural temples, grottos or seats. This may have been due to economy, but a poem by Lord Clifford's chaplain, Father Reeve, emphasizes the predominance of Nature over Art at Ugbrooke Park "To model with the Genius of the Place/Each artless feature, each spontaneous grace/for as you work the Genius still presides,/Directs each stroke and each improvement guides/...../In all so true, so unperceived the skill/That Nature modified is Nature still". Rowan, A., "Ugbrooke Park", Country Life, vol 142 pp. 790-793

Listing NGR: SX8794278327