Lodge Cottage - 5 Froxfield Eversholt

Froxfield Lodge February 2016

Froxfield Lodge was listed by the former Ministry of Works in 1961 as Grade II, of special interest. The listing states that it was built in the “early 19th century probably by Sir Jeffry Wyatville for 6th Duke of Bedford”. The duke’s estate correspondence has a reference in 1837 to “the plan you made a few years ago for small cottage lodge at Froxfield gate” in a letter from the duke’s steward to surveyor and architect Edward Crocker [R3/2617]. Wyatville worked on the nearby pleasure gardens in the 1830s. The guide to Bedfordshire buildings in Sir Nikolaus Pevsner's Buildings of England series favours the duke's surveyor Robert Salmon (1763-1821), Crocker's predecessor, as the architect.

The building is designed in what is known as a “cottage orné style” and is built of colour-washed brick, it has a 20th century tiled roof and comprises one storey with attics, built in a T-shape.

The Rating and Valuation Act 1925 specified that every building and piece of land in the country was to be assessed to determine its rateable value. The valuer visiting the property [DV1/C131/7] found it was owned by the Duke of Bedford’s London and Devon Estates Company and occupied “rent-free” by Stanley Levett. Accommodation comprised a living room, a kitchen, a scullery, a washhouse and four bedrooms. Outside stood a timber and tiled barn and earth closet. Water came from a well. The valuer remarked: “Weird place”.