REYNOLDS PARK LODGE (Dove Park Lodge) Church Road
"1888" (on tie beam of gable)
Architect - unidentified

A competent and appealing building of the Domestic Revival; a very carefully composed building whose massing has the only chimney stack as its pivot. It is typical of the Domestic Revival in the range of its materials and the sensitivity with which they are handled.

The materials are:

1) two kinds of brick, chiefly Garston Picked Commons, with red pressed brick used for plinths, and decoratively in two courses and in other features;

2) red tile hanging on three of the four gables, and the roof is of red tiles;

3) terra cotta for ridge tiles and finials crowning the gables, the chimney stack, and for a frieze of sunflowers on the principal gabled bay - sunflowers are the leitmotif of the Aesthetic Movement * and are seen on buildings of the "Queen Anne" Revival (1860s on) by J.J. Stevenson, Shaw and others;

4) half-timbering, which is structural and which has features characteristic of south Lancashire & Cheshire: namely the cove, the lozenge and the baluster;

5) the cove is pargetted - an East Anglian feature;

6) and, of course, the local sandstone to dress some of the windows; as brackets, and as blocks in the porch for seating the timberwork.

The console brackets on the principal and eastern fronts carry grotesque heads such as one would see on genuine 16th and 17th century buildings (they are a speciality of half-timbered buildings in Ludlow). Normally the consoles would be decorated with leaves; these are at the sides, but the frontal decoration here consists of overlapping discs. The disc motif is also seen on the porch which is incorporated under the main roof and which is a sturdy and handsome, balustered structure.

The wash-house in the garden is contemporary with the lodge. The yard doorway of the lodge in the Church Road wall, is probably also of 1888 since it has a refined continuous moulding.

* The movement associated with Whistler and others which stood for "Art for Art's Sake" and which had important effects on interior design.

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