Front Lodge at Bodorgan

Location

Set at the W side of the main (N) approach to the Bodorgan estate; c. 1km N of the main house.

History

Late C18. The original lodge was probably built to serve the main driveway for the new mansion built at Bodorgan for Owen Putland Meyrick (1779-83), and may have been by the architect of the main house and adjacent outbuildings, John Cooper of Beaumaris. Bodorgan was one of a number of townships from which the Bishop of Bangor derived his income, and is first recorded in 1306. The estate forms the Anglesey seat of the Meyrick family, whose ancestors were tenants of the estate from late C14 (the family surname first documented in 1537); and by late C19 was the largest estate on the island.

Exterior

Single-storey, square-plan estate lodge extended to the rear by the addition of a single window wing linking the lodge to the parallel range of outbuildings; with further block, set at an angle to the W end of the parallel range (built to the rear of the wall running alongside the road). Built of rubble masonry, roughcast rendered elevations, the main lodge with chamfered angles. Hipped roof of hexagonal slates; lodge with broadly projecting eaves forming a skirt-roof on all sides supported on timber piers, slightly tapering at top with lambs-tongue chamfered angles; and including a slightly advanced hipped-roofed, central porch to E. The main lodge has a central chimney of paired, diagonally set stacks, with projecting caps, on a rectangular base; the outbuilding range has a similarly detailed single ridge stack; both of ashlar masonry. Windows are recessed casements of 2 and 3-lights, entrance through a central, panelled door to E; outbuildings with plank doors.

Reason for designation

Listed as a fine example of a purpose-designed estate lodge, simple in plan, picturesque in detail. The lodge is also of historic interest as the first of the estate lodges built to serve the adjacent Bodorgan estate, and probably contemporary with the main house.