The Lodge and stables to SE (EHER 38398)

An early 19th century grey Gault brick building, with some white weatherboarding and slate hipped roofs with numerous rendered stacks. The roofs are covered in slate and have several rendered chimney stacks. The building is on an 'L-shaped' plan and is mostly single storey but with a lower storey built into the hill slope as sub-basement. The building is thought to have been originally built as an Officers' mess for use during the Napoleonic Wars, and was later used as hospital, and now an old people's home.

September 1971. Grade II listed. An early 19th century grey Gault brick building, with some white weatherboarding and slate hipped roofs with numerous rendered stacks. The roofs are covered in slate and have several rendered chimney stacks. The building is on an 'L-shaped' plan and is mostly single storey but with a lower storey built into the hill slope as sub-basement. The building is thought to have been originally built as an Officers' mess for use during the Napoleonic Wars, and was later used as hospital, and now an old people's home. The short south-west elevation of the main block has two sash windows with sills at ground level. To the east of these is a projecting parapeted corner block with a door in the flank and a small-paned sash window with shutters. Linking to the corner of this is a length of wrought-iron handrail with Gothick balustrade. The shorter south-west face of the long north-west elevation of the rear block has a slate hipped bay window, a 20th century lean-to greenhouse and a bell cupola on the roof with lead covoid roof, finial, and frilly eaves. The south-east elevation is partly of white boarding and has three lead-covered flat-roofed dormer windows and a slated lean-to. The two-storey north-east elevation has white weatherboarding over painted brick. There is a single-storey stable block to the south-east of brick with a hipped plain tile roof and two circular windows. <1> See photos <2>. June 2019. Heritage assessment. The listing entry makes mention of The Lodge being an officers’ mess during the Napoleonic Wars; it was part of a barracks at Maldon that was constructed in 1798 to the west of the town. The barracks were sold off in 1816 (a year after the end of the Napoleonic Wars) and, although no plans survive, its auction notice specifically mentions The Lodge as being the officers’ mess, located 'at the entrance to Maldon from Chelmsford' (ERO D/B 3/3/663B: auction notice in Star newspaper). Apart from The Lodge, none of the barracks has survived into the 21st century. Thirty-two years after the sale in 1848, Whites Directory of Essex mentions that to the west of Maldon 'where there were considerable barracks during the war with France, many genteel residences have been built'. Presumably a large number of the barracks’ buildings were demolished to make way for these new residences. The Lodge first appears in the cartographic record on the Maldon All Saints tithe map of 1848. The Lodge was put up for sale again in 1954 as a 'Gentleman’s residence and orchard'. This was prior to the building’s conversion into a care home, so the descriptions of the rooms and their sizes in the sales catalogue (ERO SALE/B1371) are useful in assisting in the identification of original walls and features at the basement level. The sales catalogue also describes the kitchen in the basement as being fitted with an 'Eagle Range' stove, which still survives today, within what appears to be an original fireplace. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries The Lodge was subject to several alterations and extensions. These are detailed in approved planning application documents stored by Maldon District Council. <3>