Houghton West Lodge

Snug and cosy

A snug lodge house surrounded by woods with a cosy sitting room and warming fireplace. Neither this, nor the similar North and South Lodges, formed part of the architectural and landscape improvements to which our first Prime Minister devoted so much energy and care. These new lodges made no attempt to rival the great Houghton Hall, Sir Robert Walpole’s magnificent seat in North Norfolk. Consequently, Houghton West Lodge is small and neat, with everything necessary for a modest and contented existence on a great estate. It is sensibly built around a central chimney with a little yard and wash-house at the back and large windows looking out into the surrounding woods.

An opportunity to live for a while at a nobleman’s gate

It stands by a drive that is now only a grassy track, set back from a country road. The last inhabitant left the lodge some years ago and the estate, having no further need of it, leased it to us. This northern part of Norfolk has the character of a peninsula: the bright light, the sense of the sea not far away, the remoteness, the fearless and prolific wildlife. At the same time, the countryside for many miles around bears the stamp of civilised owners over several centuries. The opportunity to live so agreeably for a short while at a nobleman’s gate is not one to be missed.

Jonas Wolfe, writing to Sir Robert in 1721 graphically illustrates why a new house was necessary:

'I am writing this in your Honour’s study, where I have a thousand ungrateful Companions, the Mice who doe dayly dispoyle to youre papers, parchments & Bookes …They run in such numbers ‘tis impossible to think of destroying them unless the whole be removed; in the meantime what are yett untouched by them are very unsecure.'

Sir Robert also needed a house to match his political ambitions and to demonstrate his power, wealth and discrimination. Designs were drawn up by Colen Campbell and modified by Thomas Ripley, chief carpenter at the Office of Works. William Kent designed the interiors, which housed a fine collection of paintings. The resultant house was the most sumptuous of its day. Significant improvements were also made to the gardens and grounds. The entrance to the Park was then between a pair of lodges opposite the New Inn. The church, dedicated to St. Martin remained in the park and it is here that Sir Robert and Horace Walpole lie buried.

In fact, the demands of political life and the need to be at the centre of power meant that Sir Robert only spent a month a year at Houghton Hall, but when there he entertained in style. The greater part of the government would go down to Norfolk during the summer and Christmas recesses to spend a week or more 'plotting politics in the interval of hunting, feasting and boozing with the local gentry.' These exclusively masculine gatherings were known as the 'Houghton congresses' and underpinned the web of influence and patronage upon which the Whig party was based.

Yet for all this political power, the male line failed in 1797 and the Houghton estate passed to the Cholmondeley family of Cheshire. They decided to use Houghton as principle residence until their own new house was built. Lord Cholmondeley was evidently fond of the gates at Cholmondeley Hall for he had them transferred to Houghton with a new pair of lodges built to accommodate them. These were described by a surveyor in 1798 as 'the meanest looking Hovels of the kind I ever saw.' The second Marquis Cholmondeley 'much extended the plantations on the estate, and planted …a very fine oak avenue, leading to the West Lodge.' In 1840 building accounts show they had been replaced by those we see today.

Small sections of cornice return horizontally to create the impression of a broken pediment to each facade. The sitting room and main bedroom each have an elegant round arched window fitted with sashes. In contrast the kitchen, which faces onto a small yard, has metal casement windows. The front door is framed with a horizontal hood and trellis across the head and down each side. At the other side of the yard is a combined bakehouse and wash house roofed with pantiles rather than slates. A separate door led into the wood/coal shed and backing on to this from the opposite side was the privy.

The first works to be undertaken were structural. The walls of both the lodge and the wash house were in poor condition and leaning inwards. The east wall of the yard was taken down and rebuilt. All four gables had to be rebuilt down to some extent and part of the south wall of the wash-house was taken down and rebuilt. The roofs on both buildings were also replaced - the lodge in slate and the wash-house with pantiles - in both cases reusing any sound originals. The chimney stack also had to be taken down to below roof level and rebuilt with new flue liners fitted. A lean-to woodshed and a 1920’s extension in the courtyard were demolished.

All the windows and doors were repaired wherever possible or replaced with matching ones. The bedroom window, which had been blocked, was reopened and the sashes replaced. Softwood flooring was replaced with the same in the bedroom and tiles laid in the sitting room and kitchen. The tiny fireplace in the bedroom, previously plastered over, was discovered during the works. All the rooms were given new plaster ceilings and all walls were painted in lime paint. A new bathroom was created where the second bedroom had been. The top section of the adjacent estate wall was removed and the coping put back at a lower level. Where the extension met the wall a new window was inserted to light the bathroom, with a casement to match the kitchen windows. The courtyard was laid with brick paviours. 

Mains electricity and a new water supply had to be run from the nearest estate buildings nearly a mile away - a disconcertingly expensive undertaking. A new septic tank was also installed. The lodge walls were re-rendered after a careful analysis of the original lime based render, then lined out to imitate ashlar stone as had originally been the case. They were limewashed in white to match the other estate lodges. The brickwork of the yard and the wash-house had not been rendered originally and so this was just re-limewashed without rendering it. New sections of the estate park railings were made and new timber gates constructed, based on those at the North lodge. Thus the scene was re-set and the western approach to Houghton Hall once more benignly guarded.