Bearland Lodge

Bearland Lodge is a town house, likely dating from around 1720, originally commissioned for William Lane, a barrister. Later alterations and additions were made to the rear of the building around 1970. The construction is primarily brick, painted on the front elevation, with stone details and a slate roof. It is a double-depth block, featuring an entrance hall and a staircase.

The exterior presents two storeys, an attic, and a cellar. The front facade has four bays, with a brick plinth, a projecting band at first-floor level, and a wooden cornice with modillions. Above the central two bays is a cross gable pediment, its tympanum sculpted in high relief by John Ricketts. The sculpture depicts Perseus, seated on a lion and holding a shield reflecting the head of Medusa, with a winged cherub present. The entrance doorway, located in the second bay from the left, is accessed by two stone steps and is framed by slender, fluted Corinthian pilasters and an entablature with a pulvinated frieze and a segmental pediment. Sashes with glazing bars (3x4 panes) are found on the first floor, set within openings with flat-arched, rubbed brick heads. The rear of the house was remodelled around 1970.

The interior's entrance hall is panelled to full height, with a panelled archway featuring a basket arch leading to the stairwell and rear passage. A dog-leg staircase rises to the attic, characterized by a closed string, square newels, a toad back handrail, and barleysugar balusters. The room to the right, formerly a parlour, has a dado of fielded panels topped by a moulded chair rail, fielded panels extending to the ceiling, and a moulded cornice. An apsidal niche is visible on the rear wall, framed by fluted Corinthian pilasters resting on panelled pedestals at dado level, with capitals supporting moulded panels. Elaborately carved, pierced acanthus brackets support shelves within the niche. A late 18th-century chimney-piece on a canted angle, believed to be a replacement for the original, is also present. On the first floor, the front room has been divided by later partitions, and its original 18th-century chimney-piece is now visible within a passage.

Historically, William Lane of Apperley (Deerhurst) initially leased the house before transferring it to Capel Payne, Town Clerk of Gloucester, in 1746. The pediment's sculpture is considered stylistically dissimilar to the façade, and it likely originated from Ladybellegate House, as evidenced in Kip's view of 1712.