Brimham Lodge

Brimham Lodge is a house dating to 1661, built for Thomas Braithwaite. It is constructed of finely coursed squared gritstone with a blue slate roof. The main house is two storeys with attics, and has four bays, with a projecting rear wing which contains the staircase. The original board door, lowered half restored in the mid-20th century, is centred and set within a surround of large blocks with a cyma moulding, carried across the lintel as an enriched ogee arch. Above the entrance is a single-light window with a chamfer cut to an ogee arch on its lintel. An inscribed block above the lintel reads ‘DEO FAVENTE 16 TB 61’. The house features recessed-chamfered mullion windows throughout. The ground floor windows, from left to right, consist of 5, 4, 1, 6, 1, and 5 lights; the first floor has a similar pattern but with 4 lights far left; and the attic storey has four 3-light windows. Continuous hoodmoulds run along the ground floor, and a dripmould extends to the first floor, wrapping around the east return and rear. The roof has hollow-moulded kneelers, splayed coping, and pointed bulbous finials to the kneelers and apex of the east gable. Large ridge stacks are positioned between bays 2 and 3, and 3 and 4, each featuring paired shafts and moulded caps. A similar end stack is located to the left. The projecting rear wing, to the left of centre, has 2- and 3-light windows on the ground floor and 2 single lights on the first floor, with a central corbelled stack and shaped kneelers. The return wall of the rear wing, to its left, has a large 3-light mullion and transom staircase window on the ground floor. The return wall to the rear wing’s right has an original doorway with quoined jambs and a shallow pointed head, and a 3-light window to the right. A C19 projecting bay has been added to the rear wall to the left of the wing, with a single-light window; and another, larger, C19 projecting bay is to the right, featuring 4- and 2-light windows. The right return of the main range has three tiers of windows: a 6-light window with a king mullion, a 5-light window above, and an attic window of four stepped lights. The interior is characterized by fine original fireplaces, timberwork, and partitions of post-and-panel construction. Panelling is featured in a small room to the left of the entrance hall and in upper rooms. Original board doors remain, some with carved mouldings. Two sets of stairs exist: a main set of two straight flights with slender moulded balusters in the rear wing, and a separate straight flight behind the kitchen with more heavily-moulded balusters. A carved frieze survives on these stairs. Large chamfered beams support the floors, and the roof is carried by five large upper cruck trusses, with blades set into the walls and linked by tenoned collars to maximise headroom in the attic.