West Lodge

Location

At west exit from Marine Drive.

History

Circa 1878. A pedestrian path, Cust's Path, had been engineered in the cliff faces of the Great Orme in the 1850's, so vertiginous that Gladstone complained that he had had to blindfolded in order to be led along certain sections. In 1872, The Great Orme's Head Marine Drive Co was inaugurated to convert the path to a carriage drive. Work began in September 1875, and was completed in 1878.

A toll house similar to that at Happy Valley end of Marine Drive has been demolished.

Exterior

Stone lodge with embattled parapets and mock machicolation. Low two-storey front block with buttress in centre of front ground floor wall; window to each side. North-west wall of wing with modern window on first floor and modern porch below; rear wall with two-light stone mullioned window on first floor and, on ground-floor, a pointed three-light mullioned window to the left-hand and a small single-light stone-framed window to the right hand. To rear of this front wing there is a taller tower block, the South-west elevation of which has a two-light stone mullioned window on both second and first floors and a three-light mullioned window on the ground floor. North-west elevation of tower has a small window on the first floor and, in front of the ground floor, there is a single storey projection with a two-light mullioned window in both North-west and South-west walls. In the North-west elevation of the main body of the building again, there is a narrow semi-octagonal tower with "arrow" loops to rear of main tower; low one storey wing at North-east end.

Reason for designation

Interesting later C19 toll lodge, similar to those at Happy Valley end of Marine Drive.