The Lodge Gatehouse

​This small rebrick building is a conspicuous feature at the northwest corner of the Upper Pond. It was the entrance gatehouse to The Lodge, a large house which still stands in the Ecology Centre and is now partly occupied by EcoLocal and partly by flats. The Lodge was probably built for Isaac Porter who was employed from about 1776 to manage and ultimately dispose of James Scawen’s extensive Carshalton property following his bankruptcy. Parts of Porter’s house may be incorporated in the present Lodge but if so it is not obvious.
 
The Lodge passed through various hands in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In 1866 it was sold to Richard Gunter who had made a large amount of money running fashionable tearooms in London. Gunter completely remodelled The Lodge and gave it much of its present form although there have various later alterations.

The Gatehouse is a curious mixture of styles with some pointed gothic windows in an otherwise loosely mock Jacobean building

The history of The Lodge Gatehouse is more obscure. The tithe award map of 1847 shows a small oddly shaped building on the site of the gatehouse, but it is not clear that there was a gate or an entrance. Gunter is an obvious candidate for the remodelling of the entrance and the 1868 Ordnance Survey map shows a drive to the house. A painting by William Tatton Winter probably made in the 1880s shows a gate and gatehouse, but the latter does not look like the present building.

A watercolour by William Tatton Winter probably from the 1880s. The view looks down Honeywood Walk towards the Gatehouse. Honeywood can be seen on the left. (Sutton Museum Collection CA.120)

​Gunter died in 1867 and his widow sold the property in 1878. A large extension was added to the north side of the main house between 1884 and 1896 and it is likely the gatehouse was remodelled at the same time. It was most likely done for EG Coles who lived in The Lodge from about 1888 to 1900. He was probably an India rubber manufacturer, but little is currently known of him.
 
The eccentric style of the present gatehouse would not look at all out of place in the last quarter of the 19th century. It seems to have built behind a pre-existing wall and may well be a reworking of the structure shown on the 1847 map.

John Phillips