Summary
One of a distinctive group of chalets found along the waterways of the Broads. Whiteslea Lodge may have been first built in the late C19 but remodelled or rebuilt c1909 before extension by Edward Boardman & Sons in 1931. The chalet has an associated summerhouse.
Reasons for Designation
Whiteslea Lodge, a waterside chalet, built in the late C19 and either rebuilt or remodelled in the early C20, and extended by Edward Boardman and Sons in 1931, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as a large and largely unaltered example of a Broads chalet, executed in the picturesque or cottage orné style favoured in the northern Broads;
* for its sympathetic extension in the 1930s by Boardman and Sons of Norwich whose architectural work is well represented on the NHLE;
* for its little altered exterior and plan form and equally well-preserved interior, retaining much of the original joinery and fittings;
* for its painted friezes by Roland Green, wildlife artist, commissioned by his patron Lord Desborough.
Historic interest:
* for its connections with important figures in the early history of conservation of wildlife on the broads;
* as evidence of the evolving social, ecological, sporting and recreational history of the Broads in the late C19 and C20.
History
The Broads are a network of rivers (Ant, Thurne, Bure, Yare, Waveney and smaller tributaries) and lakes which cover the eastern part of Norfolk and Suffolk. The lakes were created by peat digging which took place mainly in the C12-C14. In 1888, the Broads were conserved by an Act of Parliament and a holiday market developed. Pleasure boating had become increasingly popular by this time, and the Broads also offered the opportunity to fish and shoot. From this time and continuing into the early C20 holiday waterside chalets were built, initially for mainly affluent city dwellers who sought refuge within the wild and undeveloped wetlands. Some of the most popular areas for the chalets were around villages with transport links to major towns and cities, and those which already offered recreational facilities. Entrepreneurial boat builders and hirers began to provide tourist facilities that offered alternatives to boating, and people such as John Loynes of Wroxham and Herbert Woods of Potter Heigham, who had captured early tourists with their boat offer, had the skills to help facilitate and build the early chalets.
Local manufacturers developed their own vernacular style of simple, lightweight timber buildings, suited both to the uncertain subsoils of the wetlands and the need to transport materials which, in the majority of cases, was by water rather than road. Walls were often constructed with a timber frame and clad with timber, painted white or stained dark. On most early examples, the roofs were thatched in local reed, the best reed coming from specially cultivated Norfolk beds (which was also used outside of the Broads). Others had metal sheeting, such as corrugated iron, and felt was also later used. The earliest chalets were built around Wroxham, Hoveton, Horning and Hickling in the undulating, wooded scenery of the northern Broads, known as the upper reaches. These tended to be in a Tudor style, with half-timber walls, natural tree stump balustrading, and thatched roofs. The chalets on the lower reaches, in the south Broads, are in a more exposed area and are simpler in form, often with verandas and with large roofs for wind-resistance.
Whiteslea Lodge, facing south-west over Hickling Broad, is thought to have been built originally in the early C20 but it may have been established even earlier: Ordnance Survey maps of 1885 and 1906 show a building on the same site, with a boat house spanning the waterway on the east side. This boathouse has since been rebuilt, and another one built on the west side (neither are included in the listing). It is not clear if the lodge was later remodelled or completely rebuilt. In 1909, it was bought by Lord Lucas who leased the estate as a wildfowl shoot, and a ‘Country Life’ article from 1934 mentions that ‘the old lodge was originally only a shooting box’, and that in 1909 ‘a big sitting room was added on a higher level but this in time sank considerably’. Lucas, together with Viscount Grey of Fallodon, the Hon. E S Montagu, and Conrad Russell, founded the bird sanctuary at Hickling Broad, with the principal aim of protecting the harriers, then an endangered species.
In the 1920s, Lord Desborough took control of the shoot, and in 1927 purchased the estate. In 1931, he added more rooms and offices to the lodge and undertook major repairs to prevent it sinking into the marshy peat, raising it on a concrete raft. The plans for this work, by Edward Boardman and Sons of Norwich, show the layout of the rooms in the L-shaped lodge: the long range oriented north-west to south-east (facing the Broad), contains a central corridor with a kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms along one side; and a dining room, two bedrooms and cloakroom along the other side. The short north-east to south-west range contains a large sitting room overlooking the Broad, with a drying room and scullery behind, linking to the kitchen. By 1934 a further addition had been made to the north-east end of this smaller range for gunroom, larder, and three bedrooms (their uses described in a plan of 1961). Since then the cloakroom has been made into a bedroom, and the bathroom subdivided to create a shower room.
At the same time, Lord Desborough commissioned the wildlife artist Roland Green to paint the interior of the lodge. As described in the ‘Country Life’ article of 1934: ‘All the illustrations of Gould’s ‘British Birds’, 367 in number, have found a place on the walls of the various rooms. […] Above these in the sitting room are four modern friezes by Mr Green. Two of these are 26ft long, and two 16ft. They are views of Hickling looking north, south, east and west, each frieze depicting the various birds both resident and migratory which haunt these sections of the bird sanctuary.’
In 1945 Christopher Cadbury took ownership of the lodge from Lord Desborough’s daughter. Keen to secure the estate for conservation, Cadbury convinced the Trustees of Norfolk Naturalists Trust (now Norfolk Wildlife Trust) to buy the freehold.
Common to many of the Broads chalets, there is a history of flooding at Whiteslea Lodge. In the 1980s new measures were installed to help mitigate flooding, including a pump and French drains in several places around the garden, and the rear of the house was underpinned to stop the back extension from pulling away.
Edward Boardman and Sons of Norwich was founded by Edward Boardman; later joined in practice by his son, Edward Thomas (1861-1950). The older Edward Boardman was a prolific architect, designing and restoring country houses, public buildings and churches in the Norwich area. His son was principally responsible for the buildings designed by the practice in the Edwardian period and he later became Lord Mayor of Norwich in 1905 and High Sheriff of Norfolk in 1933. Boardman and Sons have over thirty listed buildings to their name.
Roland Green (1890-1972) was the son of a taxidermist, and his fascination for animals, and more specifically for birds, started in his childhood when he was taught their anatomy and plumage. His aptitude for drawing and painting wildlife led him to study at the Rochester School of Art and the Regent Street Polytechnic, afterwards finding work at the Natural History Museum and producing a portfolio of paintings. Lord Desborough recognised his talent, and through his patronage, Green received commissions. He moved to Hickling, firstly living on a houseboat and using a drainage mill as a studio. The demand for his work increased and he was able to build a bungalow and studio on the edge of Hickling Broad, where he lived for the rest of his life. Over the years many successful one-man exhibitions followed in London and Norwich. Green also illustrated numerous books and magazines including the five-volume classic ‘Handbook of British Birds’.
Many well-known people have stayed at Whiteslea Lodge. George V visited twice as a guest of Lord Desborough, and George VI visited on several occasions up to 1951. The Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles visited in the 1950s, including in January 1959 when, fearing flooding at Whiteslea Lodge, arrangements were made for them to be put up at the Pleasure Boat Inn.
Details
One of a distinctive group of chalets found along the waterways of the Broads. Whiteslea Lodge may have been first built in the late C19 but remodelled or rebuilt c1909 before extension by Edward Boardman & Sons in 1931. The chalet has an associated summerhouse.
MATERIALS: vertical shiplap boarding, painted white, and thatched roof covering.
PLAN: the lodge is set back from the main navigation off a shallow dyke. It has an L-shaped, double-pile plan consisting of a principal range facing south-west over the Broad, and a rear wing to the north-west, extended in the early 1930s.
To the west is a small summerhouse, built between 1906 and 1934.
(On either side of the plot are two large boat cuts with boathouses to their ends, neither of which are included in the listing, due to their more recent date.)
EXTERIOR: the large, single-storey lodge has a picturesque design, characterised by gabled bays and steeply pitched roofs with two cross gables and scalloped ridges. Red brick chimney stacks rise up from the west cross gable and the rear wing. The fenestration consists of vertical wooden casements, mostly of two or three lights, with simple wooden sills and lintels.
The principal south-west facing elevation is dominated by two, slightly projecting gabled bays with exposed rafter feet, bargeboards with loops at the lower ends and slender finials. The overhanging gable heads are clad in narrow wooden planks divided into four panels by curved braces. From the left is a panelled door with glazed upper panels and two-light margin lights, followed by a similar door (without margin lights), and the two gabled bays which are lit by three-light casements, with a two-light casement in between. To the right of the second gabled bay is another panelled door with glazed upper panels. This would have been the main entrance opening into the former cloakroom. Following this is a two-light casement, and fixed in between the two apertures is a highly decorated wooden post carved with acanthus leaves, which has been reused and is of some age. Attached to the right (south-east) gable end, which is lit by a horizontal four-light window and a two-light window, is a timber viewing platform with a post and rail balustrade, which is shown in the 1934 ‘Country Life’ article. The bargeboards on the gable ends are in the form of elongated cinquefoil arches.
The rear elevation of the principal range is four window-bays wide, lit by two-light casements except for the last bay which is a three-light casement. The second and fourth bays are gabled, decorated with the same bargeboards as those on the gable end. The short rear wing, extended in the early 1930s, is clad in horizontal shiplap boarding. The gable end has plain bargeboards and wide eaves supported by two shaped brackets. At the south end of the south-east elevation is a panelled door with glazed upper panels, leading into the former scullery. The windows are a mixture of two, three and four-light casements.
INTERIOR: the room configuration is the same as that shown on the Boardman plans (described in the History section), except for the bathroom which has been partitioned to create a shower room. Much of the original joinery and fixtures survive, notably the vertical panelling, painted white, on almost all the internal walls; the simple wooden cornicing and picture rails; and the floorboards. Most of the original four-panelled doors with glazed upper panels remain, some with lock cases, as do the fixed shelves in the larder, the serving hatch between the kitchen and dining room, and the batten with coat hooks in the former cloakroom.
In the large sitting room is a series of four friezes in simple wooden frames painted by Roland Green on the long panels of the canted ceiling. They depict the water and marshland of Hickling Broad along with the birds, indigenous and migratory, that live there, including reeves, avocets, herons, plovers, mallards, lapwings, tufted ducks and tawny owls. On the north-east wall is a splayed fireplace opening with a timber overmantle and a large red ceramic tile hearth.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: to the west of the lodge is a small timber summerhouse with a pyramidal thatched roof and raised ridge. The walls are clad in horizontal weatherboarding and reed panels, and two of them have glazed upper panels.
