Description

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

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26389349

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)