19553

 

II  

Designated  

20/03/1998  

20/03/1998  

Moorwood Lodge  

 

Powys  

Forden with Leighton and Trelystan  

Forden  

Moorwood  

323738  

303944  

 

Located approximately 2.1km SSW of Leighton church and reached at the end of a private road W of B4388 at the end of a woodland plantation.  

Domestic  

 

Later C19, possibly designed by the Liverpool architect W.H. Gee for John Naylor's Leighton Estate. Naylor, a Liverpool banker, had acquired the Leighton Estate in 1846-47 and embarked on an ambitious programme of building, notably Leighton Hall, church and Leighton Farm, all designed by Gee and largely completed by the mid 1850s. Naylor continued to extend and improve the Estate until his death in 1889, during which time a number of lodges were built, all of which use similar materials but have subtle differences in their design, and which contrast with the plainer brick labourers’ cottages. Naylor’s grandson, Captain J.M. Naylor, sold Leighton Hall and the Estate in 1931.  

Simple Tudor-Gothic style lodge of one-and-a-half storeys, consisting of a gabled main range with wings to L and R. The wing to R is set further back and has a porch at the angle with the main range. Of brick but faced in snecked, rock-faced Cefn stone with hammer-dressed quoins and surrounds, and cambered lintels, coped gables with fleur-de-lys finials, and slate roof with crested ridges and axial stone stacks to the wings. The main range has an ashlar canted bay with plain parapet and a cross-window in the centre. Similar cross-window in the wing to L. The porch has a similar plain parapet and a boarded door with iron studs and fake strap hinges. The main range has a cross-window under a round head in the gable; the wings have half-dormers on plain corbels and with coped gables, and have sash windows. The wing to L has a cross-window beneath a blind trefoil in its gable end. (The gable end of wing to R has a similar blind trefoil above conservatory added late C20. Modern wing to rear in Cefn stone.)  

Three units in the lower storey, with stairway at the rear of main range. Windows of the main elevations have panelled shutters. Panelled doors throughout.  

The Leighton Estate is an exceptional example of high-Victorian estate development. It is remarkable for the scale and ambition of its conception and planning, the consistency of its design, the extent of its survival, and is the most complete example of its type in Wales. Moorwood Lodge is an important element of this whole ensemble at Leighton. It is one of a series of lodges, all subtly different, which makes an important contribution to the architectural character of the Estate, and in contrast with the plainer brick labourers’ dwellings, expresses the hierarchy of estate buildings.