Tower Lodge, Abbeystead
If you are familiar with the road from Dunsop bridge through the Trough of Bowland to Lancaster, you might recognise the building above, it’s a well known landmark in the area and you might, like a lot of people, have idly wondered what its history is.
It’s a private house now, situated on the Abbeystead Estate, but was originally intended as a gate house for a shooting lodge called Wyresdale Tower. It was built in 1892 out of local gritstone and sandstone by the landowner of the estate at that time, the 4th Earl of Sefton. He hired the architects Douglas and Fordham to design the lodge and gatehouse and chose the ‘gothic’ style which was popular at the time, hence the pointed heads on the elegant windows which have Y-shaped tracery and the circular stone panels on the sides, called ‘quatrefoils’.
The door also has an elegantly pointed head and leads to a simple, 1 storey, rectangular plan cottage, but with rounded corners, it’s now grade 2 listed and been converted to 2 storeys but must still be incredibly small inside! Such gatehouses were never really intended to be lived in as originally they were built as fortified structures to guard the gateway to a castle or palace. By the 1800s their purpose devolved to that of being merely ornamental, designed to harmonise with the surrounding countryside and reflect the grandeur of the property beyond, and no self respecting country estate was without one.
Logis-porche
Such buildings were known as ‘logis-porche’, and would reflect the style of the year they were commissioned, they would also be built as a kind of folly, intended to focus attention to a particular part of the estate, or alter the perspective of the viewer to make the estate appear larger and grander than it is. Similar buildings can also be seen locally at Browsholme estate, where the structure incorporates a large and imposing, but entirely unnecessary gate, and Gawthorpe Hall at Padiham, where the property (see image below) which is owned by the National Trust has recently been renovated.
The hunting lodge that the gatehouse was intended for was never finished and is now in ruins, it sits at the top of a very picturesque track which winds through dark trees and would have been sited in a stunningly beautiful, south facing, location if finished, I can’t find out exactly why it wasn’t though so if anyone does please let me know!
A B-H
Northwest Nature and History 
I’ve always wanted to live in a gate house. There is a good one on the Lodge Road at Claughton. SD 513 421
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Years ago we rented the gatehouse at Browsholme that’s featured in this article, it was dark, damp, mouldy and cramped but only £250 pcm rent! I thought it was great as I had all of the woods to explore, it had shoddily built flat roof extensions to make it big enough to live in, it also got flooded in rainy weather.
I can remember there being 5 inches of water in the back rooms so we put bricks down as kind of stepping stones, we also had a big mouse problem. Before then we owned the big converted mill on Shawbridge st in Clitheroe (the one with the big plate glass window and the climbing plants on the side just down from The Buck pub) which was 4 stories and huge, the whole top floor was my personal bedroom/playroom and I had a big scalextric layout up there which ran around the whole room and I had loads of friends there all the time.
My dad had to sell it as he got into massive debt after the 90s recession and we found the cheapest place to rent, I initially hated it, as did my mum for the reasons listed above and because we found ourselves literally miles away from friends.
The change in size was a big problem, we went from having a lot of living space to none at all, we lived in the kitchen, but we ended up having lots of outdoor space compared to just having a tiny yard, I grew to love it, I lived in those woods!
Anyway long story short, these places were never designed to be family houses, they look great but you don’t want live in one, you’re better off renting a terraced house somewhere closer to civilisation, just a thought to finish with; why are new builds not terraces?
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Interesting personal history.
Terraces. They certainly aren’t building any in Longridge, the home of terracing., No such thing as affordable housing.
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I’m sorry for sharing so much of my personal history, you probably didn’t expect that!
Vis a vis housing; the big issue looked into this and found that there are over 250,000 empty houses in the U.K., https://www.bigissue.com/news/housing/how-many-empty-homes-are-there-in-the-uk/ so why do we have such a big and widely acknowledged problem with housing estates being built on land that causes ructions within communities where the housing estates are being built? When the answer is “there are 18,000 people that need affordable housing” (this is just an arbitrary number I picked from thin air btw) well where did this 18,000 people live before? I’m certain that there aren’t huge populations of people living in tents or their parents basements waiting for houses to be built for them to move straight into?
I can’t understand it at all, the only reason I can think of is money, local councils must make a fortune and such boring things like schools, buses, shops etc are for other people to worry about later!
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Basically we don’t have a joined up housing policy.
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Tower Lodge was built for John Fenton Cawthorne in about 1802. After his death his estate was bought by the Garnett family. They demolished the Tower in about 1868. The gate lodge was presumably built at the same time as the Tower.
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Interesting, so it was demolished not abandoned? I’ll have to do some more research for this and check over my sources, if could you help at all so I can get it correct that would be really appreciated!
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I just happened to notice your entry on the lodge and felt that I should let you know.
I have been up to it the site of the Tower and found there are only some fragments of the building remaining.
Here are a few references.
OVER WYRESDALE Its Church, Schools, and Charities, Rev. D. Schofield 1909 p47 “But beside building at great cost the house at Wyreside, Mr.Fenton-Cawthorne also built an expensive house in the Gothic style at Marshaw, which he called Wyreside Tower. Here, again, his desire for exalted situations and for eminence of one sort or another revealed itself. The site chosen was the high ground to the left as one approaches the Trough of Bowland, and about half-a-mile from the county boundary stone. It is a most romantic situation – wild, barren, and in winter particularly isolated and uninviting, about 1,000 feet above the sea. ……. Like the residence at Wyreside, it was elaborately fitted and furnished. The doors were of solid mahogany, and two of these Mr. Garnett, on pulling it down after having spent a large sum on renovations….. Other portions of the dismantled tower …
The Harrison and Moore 1826 sale brochure of John Fenton Cawthorne’s Wyreside estate includes both a description, “an unique Gothic Building”, and illustration of the Tower. The 1835 sale shows it on a map. Robert Garnett bought most of the estate at this second sale.
J.M. Robinson, Guide to the Country Houses of the NorthWest. London, 1988. Wyreside Tower, Wyresdale. Only a pretty entrance lodge survives of the house built 1802 by John Fenton Cawthorne of Wyreside: it was demolished by Henry Garnett 1868 and the materials were used to build the vicarage at Dolphinholme.
The 4th Earl of Sefton bought some of the Garnett estate in 1885. He hired Douglas and Fordham to design Abbeystead House and two gate lodges, built in 1887.
I hope this is helpful.
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