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Summary

Mid 18th century octagonal tea pavilion and lodge built for the Moor Park estate on the riverbank; possibly by Robert Adam

Monument Types

• BOAT HOUSE (Post Medieval - 1501 AD to 1900 AD)
• LODGE (1763-65, Post Medieval - 1501 AD to 1900 AD)
• TEA HOUSE (1763-65, Post Medieval - 1501 AD to 1900 AD)

Protected Status

• Listed Building (II) 158834

Full description

The house which is now 17 Moor Lane was built in the mid 18th century as a lodge and tea pavilion for the Moor Park estate [4133]. It dates to 1763-65 and is said to have been designed by Robert Adam for Sir L Dundas; major building works were carried out on the estate at this time. The form is of an octagonal block linked to a square block (single storey with attic), in brick with stone dressings on a stone plinth and originally a thatched roof (now tiled). The octagonal part has gables on each face with central pyramidal roof, round-headed windows on three sides, and all around it a stone band with frosted rustication. The square block faces the road with a large pseudo-Venetian window with Doric pilasters and tympanum in a relieving arch beneath a gable. The house was extended in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the interior has lost its original features <1>.

'The main entrance to the park' (ie Moor Park) 'is from Batchworth Heath, and there are also gates towards Watford and Rickmansworth, and near the latter, and separated from the park by the Watford road, is a charming garden of an informal type with a thatched cottage and summer-house said to be the work of the Adam brothers, of early nineteenth-century date and probably by a pupil' <3>. The house and gardens are shown on the 1839 tithe map <4> behind a wall along the roadside, in a triangular area along the riverbank. The grounds were compartmented, with cottage and outbuildings (presumably stables) 34m NE of the house, and a boathouse, paths, and pond. The 1875 OS map <5> shows change in the mid 19th century; the stables had gone, and the eastern part of the gardens were planted as orchards labelled as part of Hampton Hall Gardens. The surviving part of the lodge grounds were planted with deciduous and coniferous trees, with a small inlet to the boathouse; the pond had gone. The house was labelled Rickmansworth Lodge.
Little change is shown on subsequent OS maps <6, 7> until the mid 1930s <8>, by which time five detached houses with gardens running to the river had been built in the grounds, with more to the east in the orchards, and the Lodge had become part of a suburban row along the Watford Road frontage. For the background to this development, see [4134].
For the stone obelisk in the remaining part of the garden, see [30452].

<1> Listed Buildings description (Digital archive). SHT6690.

<2> Country Life, 6 & 13 Jan 1912 (Article in serial). SHT2746.

<3> Page, W (ed.), 1908, VCH Hertfordshire vol.2, - p371-86 (Bibliographic reference). SHT9314.

<4> Tithe map and award, Rickmansworth, 1839 (map) (Cartographic material). SHT1377.

<5> OS 25 inch map, 1st edition, 1873-75 (Cartographic material). SHT8116.

<6> OS 25 inch map, 2nd edition (1897-1901), 1898 (Cartographic material). SHT8113.

<7> OS 25 inch map, 3rd edition (1913-1925), 1914 (Cartographic material). SHT5271.

<8> OS 25 inch map, 4th edition (1932-47), 1932-35 (Cartographic material). SHT8092.

Sources and further reading

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