Summary
Country house, built around 1936, designed by Robert Lowry FRIBA for Francis Egerton Pegler.
Reasons for Designation
Forest Lodge, a country house, built around 1936, designed by Robert Lowry FRIBA for Francis Egerton Pegler, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* for its design by Robert Lowry FRIBA, a respected architect and architectural educator, who designed a number of elegant residential buildings;
* as a well-composed building drawing on Arts and Crafts traditions, incorporating an attractive and carefully proportioned butterfly plan, and good quality, varied building materials, expertly applied with great attention to architectural detailing;
* for the architectural quality of the distinctive butterfly-plan, which provides a magnificent suite of principal rooms and circulation spaces, and remains clearly legible, notwithstanding a small number of minor alterations to the ground-floor service rooms;
* the principal rooms and circulation spaces are well appointed, with good-quality joinery and simple country detailing, and retain a fine stair, integrated cupboards, doors and leaded windows with decorative furniture, and decorative wall sconces.
Historic interest:
* as an excellent representation of an architect-designed private country house and country estate of the 1930s, exemplifying a popular style of the inter-war period.
Group value:
* for the survival of this 1930s country estate, which also includes the associated former gate lodge (Gatehouse), chauffeur’s cottage and garage (Woodhouse) and gardener’s cottage (Roundhouse), each listed at Grade II.
History
In the early 1930s, the land and plantations south of Plantation Road were purchased by Francis Egerton Pegler (1890-1957), heir to the Northern Rubber Company in Retford and Peglers Ltd plumbing company in Doncaster. Pegler employed architect Robert Lowry to construct a residence and associated buildings at Hodsock Plantation, the new residence named Forest Lodge. Born around 1882, Lowry is recorded as having trained at the Architecture Association School of Architecture in London, working as an Assistant at the offices of Clyde Young and East and Mewes and Davis, before commencing independent practice in Richmond, Surrey. Lowry became Deputy Principal of the AA School of Architecture, and was recorded as a being a Lecturer in Greek, Roman and Renaissance architecture in 1924. He was awarded Associate membership of RIBA in 1916, and Fellow membership in 1925. His known works include: a house at 37 Bryanston Square, Marylebone, London W1 for the Hon Cecil A Campbell; a house in Brook Street, Mayfair, London W1 for the Marquis of Lansdowne; a concrete cottage 'White Steading' for F R Yerbury Esq, Amersham, Bucks (1921); a suburban house 'Queenslea' in Richmond, for W R Watkins Esq; 12 Frognal Lane, Hampstead, London, for J Marks Esq; and Forest Lodge near Blyth in Nottinghamshire, for F E Pegler Esq (1936).
Drawings of the proposed buildings at Forest Lodge by Robert Lowry FRIBA, approved by Worksop Rural District Council in 1936, record the architect’s address at that time as 16 Grafton Street, London, W1. Drawings included plans and elevations of the Gardener’s Cottage (a lodge most likely built in the late C18, now known as the Roundhouse), the Chauffeur's Cottage and Garage (now known as the Woodhouse), the Gate Lodge (now known as the Gatehouse), and Forest Lodge itself. The buildings were certainly completed by the time of an aerial photograph in May 1938.
Details
Country house, built around 1936, designed by Robert Lowry FRIBA for Francis Egerton Pegler.
MATERIALS: clay tile roof, red brick walls laid in English garden wall bond, red brick chimneystacks, and leaded casement windows.
PLAN: the house has a symmetrical butterfly plan with bow-ended wings projecting north and west at 90 degree angles from a central concave-fronted and round-ended core.
EXTERIOR: the two-storey house is largely symmetrical in plan and elevation, with wings radiating 90 degrees north and west from a central curved entrance bay. The steeply-pitched roof has a plain clay tile covering, with four rectangular-plan red brick chimneystacks, two above the entrance bay, and one at the end of each projecting wing. The curved central entrance bay is one-and-half storeys in height and gabled, having a two-light leaded casement window over a plain red brick segmental-arched door surround, containing a recessed door surround and double-leaf wooden doors with cast-iron door furniture, approached by three curved steps. To the west and north of the entrance bay, the projecting north and west wings are along the same plane and also one-and-half storeys in height, each having a single dormer to the attic clad in hanging clay tiles, and a tripartite window to the ground floor containing leaded casements. To the west and north, each of the wings steps back and narrows so that it is two-storeys in height, with two-light leaded casements to the first floor, single-light leaded casements to the ground floor, and a bowed end with two single-light casements to the ground floor.
The garden (south) elevation of the west wing is two-storeys in height and has approximately seven windows bays, the first floor windows containing either two- or three-light leaded casements, and the ground floor having a variety of one-, four-, and six-light leaded casement windows. The east end of the garden elevation is entirely rounded under a conical roof. Near the centre of the garden elevation, a pair of double-leaf timber-framed glazed doors and single step lead to the garden, the door retaining its original handle.
The rear (east) elevation of the north wing is two-storeys in height, the south end of which continues to curved around from the garden elevation under a conical roof. This round corner has two single-light casements to the first floor, and a curved set of double-leaf timber-framed glazed doors and two curved steps to the garden. A shallow two-storey projection to the kitchen was extended with the addition of a one-and half-storey projection in the late C20. The first floor of the rear elevation has seven two-light leaded casement windows and the ground floor has a mixture of single-, two- and three-light leaded casement windows. At the north end of the ground floor are two sets of double-leaf timber-battened garage doors, each featuring cast-iron strap hinges which bear the manufacturer’s name ‘CHARLES COLLINGE LAMBETH’.
From the rear kitchen extension, a long single-storey range, built around 1936, extends east, enclosing the south side of the rear yard. This range has a shallow-pitched clay tile roof, red brick walls laid in English garden wall bond, and leaded casement windows and timber-battened doors with plain overlights to its north elevation. Two roof lights were added to the north slope of the roof, and one to the south slope in the late C20, and a three-light window (possibly relocated from the second floor of the rear elevation when the kitchen was extended) was introduced to the west end of the south (garden) elevation in the late C20.
INTERIOR: from the central entrance of the front (north-west) elevation, an interior pair of timber-framed glazed doors lead to a diamond-plan entrance hall, from which the polite rooms extend south-east, south, south-west, and west into the west wing, and service rooms extend north and east into the north wing. South-east of the entrance hall, a round dining room has round-arched niches to the centres of its north-east and south-west walls, incorporating integrated rounded cupboards, which retain their decorative door furniture. South of the entrance hall, the study has a fireplace on its west wall, replaced in the late C20 or early C21. West of the entrance hall, an oak-floored lounge extends west, and provides access to a morning room to the south, which retains a stone fire surround and brick hearth on its east wall. From the west end of the lounge, the oak flooring continues south to the stair hall, which features a U-plan oak stair to the first floor, having two curved steps, a rounded oak newel post, and closed oak balustrade incorporating a moulded oak handrail. To the west of the stair hall, the drawing room has two moulded oak beams to its ceiling, and a Tudor-style stone fire surround to the centre of the west wall with a recessed tile and brick hearth, flanked by windows sets in round-arched niches, originally containing fitted seats but now containing movable furniture.
North of the entrance hall, a double set of timber-framed glazed doors provides access to a large cloak room, which retains two original timber doors on its north wall. East of the entrance hall, the wall between the former pantry and kitchen has been opened up. East of the service corridor, a U-plan service stair survives with a plain concrete baluster, and retains its original Bective Electrical Company service bell system.
On the first floor, a long corridor runs along the north side of the west (polite) wing, providing access to bedrooms to the west and south, and a corridor runs along the west side of the north (service) wing, providing access to the maids’ rooms to the east and north. Where the two corridors meet over the diamond-plan entrance hall, the space is illuminated by a diamond-shaped roof light. At the west end of the west wing, the guests’ bedroom retains an attractive brick and tiled fire surround. In the south-east corner, over the round dining room, the round bedroom (formerly Mrs Pegler’s bedroom) also retains its integrated curved cupboards, complete with decorative door furniture. Throughout the house, the plan form of the 1930s mansion survives relatively intact; all windows retain their original decorative window furniture; and all timber-battened doors and cupboard doors survive, with original handles and decorative strap hinges.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: to the rear (north-east) of the house, a detached single-storey outbuilding stands with a pitched plain clay tile roof. The walls are constructed of red brick laid in Flemish stretcher bond, with double-leaf timber-battened doors, and a single-leaf timber-battened door to the north end, both featuring cast-iron strap hinges bearing the manufacturer’s name ‘CHARLES COLLINGE LAMBETH’. To the south of the garden elevation, a wide path of mixed-sized stone paving survives, extending round the curved south-east corner.
