Summary
Lodge, built in the mid-C19, formerly to a private house, became the lodge to a public park in the late C19.
Reasons for Designation
The White Lodge, Paddenswick Road, Ravenscourt Park is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* a well-composed mid-C19 entrance lodge which includes good classical-style details.
Group value:
* with the adjacent former walled garden and the nearby former stable block (refreshment room), it forms a good group of C18 and C19 structures which are an integral part of the historic private estate, and were retained and adapted for reuse when the estate became a public park.
History
Ravenscourt Park was originally the site of a medieval moated manor house known as Pallenswick or Palingswick. The estate was one of three manors in the parish of Fulham, then the property of the Bishop of London. In the C14 it became one of over 56 manors across England owned by Alice Perrers, mistress of King Edward III, and is described in a contemporary account (1377) as comprising 40 acres of land and 60 acres of pasture, with halls, chapels, stables, granges, gardens and orchards. In the mid-C18, the estate is thought to have been renamed as Raven’s Court by then owner Thomas Corbett as a pun on his coat-of-arms, which depicted a raven (corbeau in French). A plan of 1754 shows the park in roughly its present form, including walled gardens to the north, and a building in the location of the stable block to the south of the moated house. Before the last private owner, George Scott, bought the property in 1812, the previous owner John Dorville had sold off parts of the estate and filled in three sides of the moat, leaving only the western arm to form a lake. In the late C19, after the death of Scott’s widow, the Metropolitan Board of Works bought the house and estate to convert into a public park. Management of the estate soon passed into the hands of the newly formed London County Council, whose Superintendent of Parks, Lieutenant Colonel JJ Sexby laid out flower gardens, converted the stables into a refreshment room, built toilets, a bandstand and tennis courts. The park was never officially ‘opened,’ although the public were first informally allowed in on August Bank Holiday in 1888, when much work remained to be done. In 1890 Hammersmith’s first public library was opened in Ravenscourt House. The house was demolished after being struck by an incendiary bomb in January 1941.
The lodge to Ravenscourt House was built in around the mid-C19. It is not shown on the Hammersmith tithe map (1840s). It appears on the Town Plan (1:1056; 1871) by which time it consisted of an L-shape footprint including a lean-to on the north side. After Ravenscourt became a public park in 1888, the lodge was leased out to park staff. The building originally had an entrance door on the south elevation, adjacent to the Paddenswick Road Gate; this was later removed and replaced by a sash window. The door in the northern lean-to became the main entrance and a doorway was inserted into the garden wall along Paddenswick Road to provide access to the lodge garden which had been created in the corner of the adjacent walled garden. All of the lodge’s tall chimney pots have been removed. The lodge was situated adjacent to stucco gate piers at the Paddenswick Road Gate; these have since been removed.
Details
Lodge, built in the mid-C19, formerly to a private house, became the lodge to a public park in the late C19.
MATERIALS: stucco with a pitched roof clad in concrete tiles.
PLAN: L-shaped footprint.
EXTERIOR: a single-storey building. The street elevation has pilasters topped by an arch and flanking a central round-headed triple-light timber window; the elevation is topped by a pediment. The south elevation has three timber sliding-sash windows with glazing bars and there is a band at cornice level. The pitched slate roof includes a tall lateral stucco chimney stack over the north side and another stack over the west gable end. To the north is the lean-to which contains a uPVC entrance door and C20 timber-frame windows.
INTERIOR: the lodge retains its interconnecting three-room plan. All three main rooms are heated: two retain their cast-iron back panels while one is boarded over. The decorative surrounds are all modern replicas of earlier styles. The building has two and four-panel doors of various dates. The lean-to contains the modern kitchen and bathroom.
