Brough Lodge & Gatepiers, Fetlar

Brough Lodge & Gatepiers, Fetlar

Built circa 1825, this is a distinctive and picturesque lodge-house complex executed in Castellated-Gothick style with Classical and Moorish detailing. The buildings are constructed from harl-pointed random rubble walls with polished and droved sandstone ashlar dressings, with brick dressings applied to the north screen wall.

The principal block is a symmetrical two-storey house flanked by single-storey wings to the east and west. The south elevation is arcaded, featuring a tripartite window to the ground floor with polygonal shafts and pointed-arched lights, with a bracketed drip mould at the lintel. Above this is a pointed-arched window with a polygonal shaft to paired and cusped lower lights, with cusped quatrefoil tracery in the arch-head. Tapered polygonal buttresses with blind arrowslits frame the centre bay, rising through a mutuled cornice to corbelled bartizan bases and engaging a formerly crenellated parapet at the corners. Single-storey wings flank this elevation, with a mutuled cornice and crenellated parapet returning at the left bay to the west elevation. The west elevation is a three-bay composition with a tripartite canted window to the centre, flanked by single-light openings, with the centre block rising behind to match the south elevation cornice and parapet. The north (entrance) elevation displays a two-leaf panelled timber door with a three-pane fanlight at ground level to the left of centre, accompanied by an ashlar forestair, and a three-centred arched window at first-floor centre. The east (rear) elevation is near-symmetrical with three bays and irregular fenestration, with wallhead stacks. The roof is covered in purple-grey slate, with a piended roof at the centre and piended platform roofs to the wings, pierced by harled-pointed and coped rubble stacks symmetrically disposed to the west wing and a single matching flue to the east wing. Windows are of 12-pane and 4-pane glazing in timber sash and case frames.

The interior contains an unusual oval-shaped hallway and oval stairwell with curved timber doors and cornicing. A decorative wrought-iron bannister rises with the curving staircase, and a pointed-arched window is positioned on the internal wall at the first-floor landing. A central cupola surmounts the stairwell. The ceilings are timber-lined, and some ground-floor rooms retain timber panelling and cornicing.

The courtyard entrance gateway and outbuilding comprise a round-arched gateway at the centre of the west courtyard wall, flanked by basket-arched niches and surmounted by an armorial panel framed by colonnettes, which rises into a shallow full-width corniced pediment. A two-bay single-storey and basement structure extends to the left as a lean-to outbuilding, with basement windows in the right bay and offset to the left of the left bay, and basket-arched niches in the bays at principal-floor level.

The screen wall is harl-pointed rubble, recessed to the left of the lean-to. Blind cruciform arrowslits flank a gateway to the left of centre, with a three-centred arch contained within a pointed-arched recess. This is itself contained within a raised wallhead decorated by machicolation and bracketed cornice. The wall terminates in a two-bay single-storey pavilion at the outer left, comprising a two-light Gothic window in the left bay and an ogee-arched recess in the right bay containing a vertically-boarded timber door. Square and circular blind recesses are centred above, and an open red brick belfry surmounts the cornice with Gothic strapwork to a panel in the pointed arch-head. A random rubble shallow-gabled structure stands behind with a lean-to wing on the east elevation.

A two-stage battered lime-harl-pointed rubble tower folly stands on a hillock to the east, of oval plan with an adjoining 'gatehouse' stair-tower to the west. A pointed-arched doorway in the west elevation of the stair-tower accesses a stone stair adjoining to the north, which leads to a flagged top (formerly with a timber 'drawbridge' platform). Random rubble ramparts extend from the stair-tower to the north and south, curving around the hillock and terminated to the south by a corbelled harled brick bartizan. The principal elevation to the west is symmetrical and three-bayed, with arrowslits in the outer bays at ground level and a pointed-arched entrance door centred at first floor, flanked by paired pointed-arched windows. Oval shot-holes occupy each bay below a bracketed eaves course with a crenellated parapet corbelled out to bartizans at the north and south extremities, each with wider pointed-arched windows slightly offset below.

Upper terrace walls front the west wing, courtyard entrance gateway and screen wall. A low random rubble retaining wall is bisected at the courtyard entrance by stone steps terminated to the west by square ashlar gatepiers with corniced caps. Additional steps link the terraces to the north. A lower terrace to the west is bounded by low random rubble retaining walls curving from the gateway and enclosing the north and south extremities.

A series of random rubble walls enclose areas to the east of the principal block, courtyard and pavilion, with a walled garden adjoining the rear of the principal block. A rubble lean-to outbuilding spans the east side of the east wall, and a further enclosure adjoins to the south, both with square ashlar gatepiers with corniced caps in the west wall. A gabled rubble outbuilding stands to the rear (east) of the pavilion, with a random rubble walled enclosure terminated by the hillock to the east. A keyhole-shaped ashlar well head opens to the south.