Lodge gate

“ We climbed up the steep carriage-drive to the lodge, passed through the big iron gates, turned sharply to the left, and went down the road which the park palings border and the elms behind them shade, past the little copse beyond the park, till we came to a tumble-down gate with a stile beside it in the hedgerow ”

“ The gatehouse itself is chiefly modern, but part is old; and connected with it are the remains of an arch jamb and portcullis groove, probably traces of the main entrance to the castle. This gate leads by a short lane into the market-place. The lower lodge, or entrance from the bridge side, was built in 1810, and with its adjacent wall is wholly of that date.
The mound is crested by a many-sided shell of wall, about 9 feet thick, and from 30 feet to 40 feet high. This wall is in part very old. The base has been supported by a modern facing, which batters considerably, and is about 2 feet high ”

“ There is one to the left, as you leave the gates, exceedingly rural and quiet. You will be quite safe; it is an honest neighbourhood."
I found the walk she spoke of and stayed out for nearly two hours. Not a single house, but one, did I pass. I found afterwards that what few houses there were lay to the right. This one stood in view of the entrance gates, nearly opposite to the lodge; a substantial, moderate-sized house, closed at present, and displaying a board—"To Let." I had half a mind to open its front gate and explore the garden, but I had been out long enough, and turned to Chandos. ”

“ It was made of iron grating and afforded a view of the interior. The lodge was a great stone house, standing in the middle of a clearing within an enclosure. In the rear were the stables. Not a soul was within sight and the gate was locked. ”

“ So with one voice they all set up a loud cry. Now, as they were not far from the held gate, they were heard from that place, and some of those in the lodge came out in haste to catch these bad men; when they soon leapt the wall, and got safe to the grounds where the dog was kept.
Reliever:—How was it that when you were at the gate you did not ask Him who stood there to take you on your way, and guard you from harm? Had you done so you would not have gone through these frights, for He would have been sure to grant you your wish. ”

“ As we cross the threshold our attention is drawn to an old stone horse block standing in a corner behind the gate, from which, doubtless, in days gone by, many a stately matron and many a graceful maiden has mounted to her palfrey to follow hawk and hound. A door opens on each side of the gateway, one communicating with some small rooms, and the other admitting to a small chamber that has evidently served as the porter's lodge. At the opposite end, entering into the quadrangle, is a wide doorway, the sideposts of which are deserving of special notice ”

“ There was a large portal, closed by an iron gate. On one side of the portal was a lodge. A porter came out of the lodge, and Mr. Holiday asked him if they could see the chateau. He answered very politely that they could; and immediately opening the iron gate, he ushered the whole party into the court yard.
The court yard was a very pleasant place. It was surrounded on three sides by the buildings of the chateau, which were quite imposing in their character, like a palace. The fourth side was formed by a handsome wall, with a large ornamented gateway in the centre of it, leading into a garden. ”

“ On the right of this gate some outlines of an old lodge could be dimly seen among clustering cedar trees.
But no light appeared to indicate where door or window might be.
278“De old ’oman has gone to bed hours ago, most like,” pleasantly remarked the wagoner, as David Lindsay passed through the iron gate and the wild thicket of cedar bushes and rapped at the door of the dark house.
“Who is there?” almost immediately inquired a voice from within.
“Nobody to hurt yer, ole mist’ess!” shouted Tubal, who was leaning up against a post of the gate, utterly refusing to enter the haunted grounds. ”

“ A considerable way up you are arrested by smart lodge gates, and there enter a fine and well-kept park, in which the neatness of the carriage roads, which are daily swept, and the skillfully dispersed masses of fine trees, speak of wealth, and a pride in it. ”

“ A walk of a mile along a wide white road brought them to big iron gates, standing open, beside a tiny lodge with diamond-paned windows set in lattice-work, under overhanging eaves; and all smothered with ivy out of which sparrows fluttered busily. ”

“ The building itself has no great architectural beauty except the beauty of age. Its courts are gray and still, and its grounds small; in fact, it possesses only the Lodge garden, and a walk between tall trees on the other side of the Avon, which is crossed by a very curious bridge. The Lodge itself is so close to the river, that from its windows you may drop a stone into the dusky, slowly rippling, sluggish water, which seems quieter and deeper there than at any other college past which it flows. ”

“ From a lodge so neat and trim that it is a pleasure to look upon it, a well-kept road winds through a well-wooded and beautiful park, in the centre of which, on the brink of a lake, stands a large and handsome country house. All is ship-shape, from the gravel on the path to the knocker on the door, which is promptly opened, without grating of bolt or rattle of chain, by a clean, well-dressed, civil servitor. ”

“ Traversing this dim, sweet spot, where no sound is heard but the waving of boughs and the softened notes of birds, one reaches the porter's lodge, a low, brick building, on each side of which extends the high brick-wall that separates the inner from the outer world. ”

“ When this gateway was opened out, a rough wall presented itself, which from the inferiority of its masonry, had evidently been the work of ruder hands than those employed upon the wall of the station, making it evident that the gateway had been built up long after the Roman occupation, and suggesting the idea that the camp may have been appropriated as a stronghold in the subsequent days of border warfare. This wall has been removed, and the gate, the opening of which between the pillars is eleven feet two inches, clearly exposed. ”

“ The cart drew up suddenly in a sort of inclosure of stone walls. To the right was an ancient and broken stone cross, on a circular flight of rude and worn steps; to the left, a stone-built lodge, a pseudo-Tudor but modern erection, was built over a gateway, the wrought-iron gates of which were shut. In front, a turnstile led into a churchyard. Barnabas got down and pulled the lodge-bell, which gave a startingly loud peal. ”

“ I know when I am beat as well as the next man, and, losing no more time there, I ran as fast as I could along the wall, out of the lane, and so to the front of the house. The main entrance was protected by great gates of wrought iron, which were opened on occasion by a man in a little cubby of a cabin that stood for a porter's lodge. ”

“ The circle of sticks or frame, is always left standing, as it would be useless to encumber the canoe with what can easily be had at any position in a forest country.
Such at least is the hunting lodge, and indeed, the lodge generally used by the tribes north of latitude 42°. It is, in its figure, a half globe, and by its lightness and wicker-like structure, may be said to resemble an inverted bird’s nest. The whole amount of the transportable materials of it, is often comprehended in some half a dozen good rolls of bark, and as many of rush mats which the merest girl can easily lift. ”

“ The Outer Ward.—The gatehouse has been much altered and mutilated. In front it presents the appearance of a gateway, with a low-pointed arch, in a curtain about 6 feet thick and 35 feet high, of which the merlons are pierced by plain loops. On each side the gate is a flanking wall, 3 feet thick, and projecting 8 feet, which, no doubt, covered the drawbridge. The arch looks Decorated, as is probably the curtain, though the battlements are probably modern. The ditch has been filled up, and large trees grow along its course. ”

“ Within the arch was a portcullis in a square groove of dimensions for a wooden grate, and behind this a rebate for folding doors. The passage then widens a little with a curved splay, and on each side a door 2 feet wide opens into a lodge looped to the front and to the outside. In the rear of the east lodge is a solid wall 7 feet thick; but to the west lodge has been added a garderobe, and beyond it is the shaft of a second garderobe from the upper floor, and below them a sewer which opened into the lake. The loops are all cruciform. ”

“ The first thing that would impress a visitor with the fact that he had come among a peculiar people, is the character of their dwellings, absolutely unlike any used by any other tribe, either of the woods or plains, except their near neighbors and friends, the Minitarees. The lodge is a circular structure, set in an excavation about two feet deep. A framework of stout posts supports a roof of poles converging toward the centre, where an opening is left for the entrance of light and the escape of smoke. ”

“ The mansion is approached from the principal Lodge Entrance by a drive through the park, which is finely timbered with forest trees of large growth. These are chiefly oaks, of which there are some remarkably fine and gigantic examples. Under these roam innumerable herds of red and fallow deer, which add much to the beauty of the park scenery. The Lodge, with its overhanging roofs, its mullioned windows, its geometrical chimney-shafts, and its advanced porch, is one of the most picturesque and pleasant in the county. ”

“ The ground around the lodge was ditched, and the sods piled around the bottom of the skins. About ten feet from the lodge, in front of the door, was a square patch of earth, dug up and carefully smoothed, and behind it a small mound of earth and sods, on top of which were placed two buffalo skulls, bleached white with the rains; they were arranged facing the lodge, as like two silent sentinels watching the repose of the dead, and the forehead of each bore ten red stripes, signifying that the defunct dignitary had borne his share of the perils of ten war-paths. ”

“ At the back of the lodge stood a crazy porch of rustic woodwork, and therefrom a door, lolling on broken hinges, gave access to the interior of the building. There was a gap here sufficient for the entrance of a man, and he went through it swiftly, and along a stone-paved passage beyond, that was dumb with dust and littered with flaked rags of plaster and crackling wall-paper. So he made his way to a front room that looked upon the drive ”

“ One of these lodges is about five miles on the road to Walsall, to which you approach by taking the right hand road, opposite a house of entertainment, the Scott's arms, and then taking the second turning to the left conducts you to the lodge. On entering the park, a circular coach drive leads to the holly wood, through which you proceed by a serpentine road near half a mile, when a beautiful sheet of water presents itself to view, along whose banks you pass near a mile before you arrive at the mansion. ”

“ About 4 feet of this lodge is excavated in the thickness of the wall of Wakefield Tower.
The entrance-way, on passing the gatehouse, lies between a retaining wall on the left, or west, and the main guard, which supersedes Cold Harbour wall, on the right. A modern staircase, no doubt representing an old one, ascends in the substance of the west wall, and opens on the parade before the constable’s house, and here also is the entrance to the first floor of the gatehouse. ”

“ Close beside the lodge grew a great oak tree. All its forest neighbours had been cut down when the place was built. Its wide branches overhung the roof. Even though I failed to find a trap-door there, I would be safer in the branches than on the ground in case the Duke had his dogs in the stable. I quietly swung myself up by means of a low-hanging limb, and drew the telltale spear after me.
As my head came clear of the coping I saw the roof was somewhat flat and that a small watch-tower stood in the centre of it. ”

“ You, at the cost of some effort in hill-climbing, take the defences in the rear, and entering away back by the farmstead and workshops of the estate, come down by the finest of the scenery to those selfsame locked gates at these outskirts of Blandford, to observe and hear with some secret satisfaction the expressed horror of the lodge-keeper, only too anxious to let you out and be rid of you. ”

“ Slabs of wood are then set in the spaces between the braces at the same inclination, and resting-against the stringers, which when completed surrounded the lodge with a wooden wall. Four round posts, each six or eight inches in diameter, are set in the ground near the center of the floor, in the angles of a square, ten feet apart, and rising from ten to fifteen feet above the ground floor. These again are connected by stringers resting in forks at their tops, upon which and the external wall the rafters rest. ”

“ All pretentious houses and hotels are built in quadrangles, with a carriage driveway entering a huge gate to the open court. At night this is closed by a pair of tall gates or doors twelve or fifteen feet high, like those in front of our fire companies, and a servant must lie there all night to answer a summons or to admit a belated lodger. Without changing the clothes he has worn all day, he lies on the soft side of a stone pavement night after night with his zerape or a piece of straw matting under him, and a stone for a pillow. ”