Details
DIDLINGTON
1677/0/10001 HIGHASH HILL
23-APR-07 Falconer's Lodge
II
Falconry lodge, now house. Circa 1814 with additions of 1901 and later.
MATERIALS: Knapped flint, gault brick and render, with copper roof. The cottage is in red brick with pantile roof.
PLAN: Square two-storey tower, with a single-storey cottage attached to its east side with attic extension to the rear.
EXTERIOR: The tower is in a Moorish or Arabian-Gothic style, possibly alluding to the origins of falconry in the Middle East and its link with the Crusaders, who are credited with introducing falconry to England. The west, north and south elevations of the tower are divided into 3 bays by blind arcades on both storeys, with drop arches. The arches are formed by alternating headers and stretchers of gault brick. The pilasters of gault brick are inlaid with squares of knapped flint in a vertical pattern. The spandrels and blind panels are of finely-cut square knapped flint with rendered tympana. A 3-course platband divides the ground and first floor. Above the first floor is a wooden dentil cornice and brick crenellated parapet, reconstructed in 2005. In the central panels on three sides there are sash windows of 1901 with glazing bars, other than in the upper storey on the north side where the panels were rendered. The windows were originally full height to maximise viewing of the falcons, but the bottom part of the panels was infilled with matching flint presumably in the mid C19 when the Lodge ceased to be used for falconry. The west front, which faced Didlington Hall, has a part-glazed panelled door recessed into the central panel. The upper part of the east front is red brick with a C21 chimney stack and catslide roof.
Attached on the east side is a low single-storey cottage in red brick, with decorative diagonal brickwork on the gable end. This was originally the service block and probably had a door on the south side between the windows. The windows, dormer and pantile roof are C21 replacements. To the rear of the cottage is a red-brick extension of 2005/6, replacing a porch of c1901 which had been damaged by army occupation in the Second World War. The door in the extension is c1901 and was removed from the north side of the cottage.
INTERIOR: The ground floor of the tower has sash windows with shutter-boxes of 1901 and the front door is believed to be the original of 1814. Under the floorboards to the north of the door is a small wine-store, indicative of the room's use for entertaining and dining. A similar store is said to exist to the south of the door. Original wooden steps on either side of the fireplace lead down into the cottage kitchen (on the north side a stair going up to the first floor was added at a later date). The kitchen has a large brick fireplace, slightly damaged by the Desert Rats, which would have housed a range. The attic room above the kitchen was unheated and would have been used as servants' accommodation during the hawking season. The room on the first floor of the tower, originally used for meetings, has sash windows and shutter-boxes of 1901. A mid C19 staircase, altered in the C21, leads from this room to the viewing platform on the roof and has a bull's eye inlaid into the handrail. The architrave around the door is c1814.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: The raised ground on the south side of the building was originally used for the display of falcons. The perches were spaced out as the wild falcons could not be kept too close together. In the mid C19 the Long Gallop led into this space.
HISTORY: In 1814 Colonel Robert Wilson of Didlington Hall, later 9th Lord Berners (1761-1838), became President of the Confederate Hawks of Great Britain. The Confederate Hawks, known as The Falconers' Club, had been founded in 1772 by Colonel Thomas Thornton as a revival of British falconry after a Puritan-inspired gap of over a century. Lord Berners was a keen sportsman, a Master of the Foxhounds, who won the Derby in 1837 with his horse Phosphorus at odds of 40-1. He had Falconer's Lodge built on his estate at Didlington in around 1814, and it became the centre of formal falconry in Britain and reportedly Europe.
The first known reference to the Lodge appears in Richard Lubbock's Observations on the Fauna of Norfolk (1st edn 1845, 2nd edn 1879). The appendix to Lubbock's 1879 edition contains detailed descriptions of hawking at the Lodge in Lord Berners' time. Wild falcons such as gyrfalcon were used, with prey provided by the herons from the heronry in the nearby lake. Falconry continued to be practised at Falconer's Lodge until Lord Berners' death in 1838, after which the Falconers' Club moved to Loo in Holland. The decline of falconry in England was hastened by the urbanisation of the landscape in the C19 and the loss of suitable quarry.
In 1846 the Didlington estate was sold to William Powlett, and in 1852 to W.G. Tyssen-Amherst. Falconer's Lodge was used for picnics and entertainment on shooting parties. The Amherst family kept a stable, including a Derby winner, and the approach to the Lodge was converted into a horse-training ground known as the Long Gallop. The Lodge served as an observatory to monitor the progress of horses under training. William Amherst had Didlington Hall reconstructed in a Georgian style by Richard Norman Shaw in 1883-85.
In 1901 the Lodge was converted to a gamekeeper's cottage, until the sale of the estate to Herbert Francis Smith in 1911. Ownership subsequently passed to the Forestry Commission, and High Ash became one of the first areas of Thetford Forest to be planted.
During the Second World War the estate was requisitioned by the Army, and the Lodge served as officers' accommodation for the 7th Armoured Division (the Desert Rats). Didlington Hall suffered damage through army use and was demolished in 1950. Falconer's Lodge became a private residence. By the 1960s it had become so obscured by the growth of Thetford Forest that an article in Norfolk Fair magazine claimed it had been demolished. In 2005-6 restoration and alteration works were carried out to enable the Lodge's continued use as a private residence.
SOURCES:
Rev. Richard Lubbock, Observations on the Fauna of Norfolk, and more particularly on the District of The Broads; new edition, with... an appendix, containing notes on hawking in Norfolk by Alfred Newton (1879; 1st edn 1845).
John Kenworthy-Browne et al., Burke's and Savill's Guide to Country Houses, Vol. 3: East Anglia (1981), 103-104.
Charles Mosley (ed.), Burke's Peerage, 107th edn (2003), 356 (accessed through http://www.thepeerage.com on 15 September 2006).
http://www.peregrinefund.org, accessed on 4 September 2006.
SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE:
Falconer's Lodge was built by Colonel Wilson of Didlington Hall in around 1814 when he became President of the Confederate Hawks of Great Britain. The Lodge has special historical and architectural interest as the centre of formal falconry in Britain in the early C19. Its specific purpose as a sporting clubhouse is distinct from previous falconry towers which were built for personal entertainment. The tower survives relatively intact, with an exterior of high-quality square knapped flint in an Arabian-Gothic style associated with the history of falconry. The interior retains its original plan-form and some features such as the kitchen fireplace, wine stores, steps down to the kitchen and skirting. The building was clearly used as a lodge for entertaining and viewing, with an attached kitchen and servants' accommodation over. The original landscape setting survives including the raised area which served as a perchery. The building's subsequent use as a horse-training lodge and its occupation by the Desert Rats in the Second World War add to its historical interest. The brick extension added in 2005/6 on the north side is not of special interest.
