Gate lodge and gateway to Croydon Road Recreation Ground, Clock House, London

Summary

Gate lodge and gateway. Built in 1890 to 1891 when the park was laid out by Reid and Bornemann of Sydenham.

Description

Gate lodge and gateway. Built in 1890 to 1891 when the park was laid out by Reid and Bornemann of Sydenham.

MATERIALS: the lodge is built of red brick with a wooden veranda, a lead-covered dome to a bay window, and slate-covered roofs with ridge tiles.

PLAN: the lodge has a single-storey main range which is square in plan under a pyramidal roof, a single-storey wing under hipped and gabled roofs at the west corner, and a porch on the north-west side.
EXTERIOR: the main range of the lodge has a large pyramidal roof supported by timber arcades forming verandas facing the park on the south-east and north-east sides. The timber verandas are formed of Tuscan columns supporting three-centred arches with projecting keystones and a moulded cornice. Each arcade column rests on a square pedestal and there is a wooden picket fence in front of the south-east arcade. The south-east elevation has a brick and stone plinth and a central door opening containing a half-glazed three-over-three pane timber door. The north-east elevation has a large multi-pane casement window. At the angle between these elevations is the projecting circular bay which has a moulded plinth and cills, a continuous band of glazing comprising three-over-three paned casements and fixed windows, and then a cornice beneath a ribbed ogee dome surmounted by a ball finial. The main pyramidal roof is topped by a huge corbelled chimney with a moulded base and four flues. The south-west elevation has two large six-light multi-paned casements. Attached to the north-west side of the main range is a lean-to porch, which forms a side entrance into the lodge, and then the wing, which has a chimney, a large six-light casement window, a smaller casement and a slate-hung gable to the north-west elevation under gabled and hipped roofs.

INTERIOR: the main entrance door to the lodge is on the south-east side of the lodge. It leads to a long spine corridor, which has two bedrooms, a living room and dining room leading off it. Attached to the north-west is a porch and a cross-wing which contains the kitchen. The porch has a half-glazed entrance door, a main vestibule, and two boarded doors leading into what may originally have been lavatories or changing rooms at the north-west. Several of the fixtures and fittings to the lodge are of later C20 date, including the fireplaces, kitchen units and sanitary ware. However, there are earlier four-panelled doors with brass door furniture, built-in cupboards and wooden joinery. The floors are largely carpeted but beneath the carpets parquet flooring is considered to survive.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the main gateway to the park is situated next to the gate lodge and forms an architectural grouping with it. It comprises a central carriage gate flanked by smaller pedestrian gates with square gate piers. The piers are built of brick with stone dressings and have a chamfered plinth, a cornice and stone coping. Surmounting the coping are lamp standards with glass globes held in iron bands with iron pedestals and finials to the piers of the main gate, and plainer ball finials to the side gates. Between the piers are gates with curved tops formed of iron railings with ornamental spear heads. Dwarf walls topped by railings curve outwards from the gate and end in a further set of piers topped by ball finials.

History

Park lodges situated next to entrance gates set the tone for public parks, as well as housing the park-keepers and superintendents who oversaw them. Public parks were created in increasing numbers from the mid-C19 but it was not until after 1875 that a substantial increase in activity became evident. The Public Health Act of that year enabled local authorities to acquire and maintain land for recreation and raise government loans to do so (Conway 1996, 27). It provided a considerable stimulus for the park movement, which thereafter expanded with parks developing in suburbs, small towns and seaside resorts for recreation and as an expression of civic pride.

Croydon Road Recreation Ground, Beckenham, was established by the Beckenham Local Board and laid out by Reid and Bornemann of Sydenham on an area of open farmland in 1890. The gate lodge and gateway were built as part of the laying out of the park and are shown on the 1896 OS map (1:2500). The recreation ground formally opened on 23 September 1891 following a local campaign to secure public open space in Beckenham. The opening was a major local event with a celebration that included flags and bunting in Beckenham, the ringing of the church bells and a special schoolchildren’s medal minted for the occasion. In January 1892 the first park supervisor or ‘Estate Officer’, James George Thomas Baxter, was appointed at a wage of 24 shillings a week plus the use of the lodge. His wife, Lucy, was given permission to serve refreshments to visitors from a window of the lodge. Baxter, formerly a local gardener, held the position of Estate Officer until he retired in the 1920s.

A bandstand was added to the park in 1905 and is now the only bandstand from the McCallum and Hope Iron Foundry, Glasgow, known to survive in Britain (Rabbitts 2018). Croydon Road Recreation Ground has since hosted celebrations for coronations, jubilees, hospital fetes, Empire days, May Queen festivals, as well as commemoration services to servicemen of the First and Second World War and formerly a major annual flower show (once rivalling Chelsea). In 1902 Britain’s first public air mail balloon left the park, dropping post at three points in Kent before crossing the Channel and landing near Calais. Harold Bride, a radio operator on the Titanic in 1912, was carried round the park and spoke from the bandstand after surviving the disaster. In 1935 the Mayor of London presented Beckenham with a Charter of Incorporation as a borough within the grounds.

The recreation ground has a close association with the musician David Bowie (1947-2016). He lived in Beckenham from the age of eight and co-founded the Beckenham Arts Lab in his 20s. Bowie and the Arts Lab organised the Growth Summer Festival, a free one-day festival held on the bandstand at Croydon Road Recreation Ground on 16 August 1969. It has been described as ‘the first of its kind in the UK’, the intention being to set up a similar kind of free agenda for artists and musicians as seen at Woodstock (Goddard 2019, 92). The festival followed the release of Bowie’s first hit single ‘Space Oddity’ and inspired him to write ‘Memory of a Free Festival’; a seven-minute song in homage to the festival. It has also been suggested that Bowie may have penned the lyrics to the song ‘Life on Mars’ from the steps of the bandstand (May, 2017). In 2013, a new commemorative Memory of a Free Festival was held on the bandstand to raise money for its restoration. It was repeated in 2014 before being replaced by a new event called ‘Bowie’s Beckenham Oddity’ in 2016. The bandstand has in recent years become known as the ‘Bowie Bandstand’ (London Borough of Bromley, 2019) and was Grade II-listed in August 2019. The gate lodge at the park is now (2021) occupied as a private dwelling.

Reasons for Listing

The gate lodge and gateway to Croydon Road Recreation Ground, Beckenham, built in 1890 to 1891, are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* a late Victorian gate lodge forming a strong architectural composition alongside the gateway at the entrance to the park, including wooden verandas, a circular bay window for the supervision of the park covered by an elegant ogee dome, and a pyramidal roof rising to a tall central chimney stack;
* the lodge survives relatively well and compares favourably to listed lodges of the period.

Historic interest:

* for the historic association with the wider expansion of the public park movement in the late C19, following the Public Health Act (1875), when parks developed in suburbs and small towns for recreation and as an expression of civic pride.

Group value:

* as a component of a fine late Victorian and Edwardian ensemble alongside the Grade II-listed Bowie Bandstand (1905), which is also associated with the 1969 Summer Growth Festival and David Bowie’s rise to fame after performing in the park, adjacent to housing of the same period.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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