Listed Building record MDR16559 - Longshawe Lodge, Longshaw Estate, Grindleford

A grade II listed former shooting box, now houses [1985]. It was built for the Duke of Rutland, c. 1827, with later 19th century additions. It is constructed of ashlar and coursed squared gritstone, with coped gables and moulded kneelers, some with ball finials. There are ashlar ridge and sidewall stacks and stone slated roofs. The lodge has an irregular plan and elevations. The north-west elevation is a rambling range, consisting of five different gables, some advanced, linked by pitched roof ranges or parapets running at right angles to the gables. It has chamfer mullioned windows of between three and five-lights, some transomed, some with semi-circular heads, all beneath hoodmoulds with stops. It is of two storeys throughout, of different heights, nine window bays, with canted bay windows to seventh and ninth bays at north east end, the former parapeted, the latter with a pitched roof. There is a single storey entrance porch to the eighth bay with a parapet. Four centred arch and plain planked door to the doorway. To the rear, a tall, square tower, represents an imitation of the tower house tradition of the area. The tower is of four storeys, with embattled parapet and mullioned and mullioned and transomed windows with flat band courses or moulded strings between windows. (1) Longshawe Lodge was subject to an historic building assessment in 2015/16. It represents a fine example of a Victorian 'shooting box', its exterior aspect reflecting its developed, late 19th century form evocative of the 'great age' of the English shooting estate. In terms of its overall form, the lodge is somewhat lacking in architectural cohesion, the result of its piecemeal development over a number of distinct phases of enlargement, though the evolved whole is nonetheless of considerable merit, especially the southern and south-eastern aspects overlooking the formal gardens. Although having been subjected to extensive internal alteration in the late 20th century, the exterior of the lodge survives relatively intact; the extent of internal alterations to the lodge is unclear as is the extent of survival of historical interiors, fixtures and fittings. Overall, although the evidential value of the range is somewhat limited, its aesthetic and illustrative historical values can be adjudged to be high. (2)