Draycot Lodge / Front Lodge - The Entrance to Draycot Park

The Rev. Francis Kilvert, of Langley Burrell, wrote about ice skating on the lake with the Awdry family in the winter of December 1870.

For more about Langley Burrell, and about Francis Kilvert and his Diary, see http://langleyburrell.org

Draycot Cerne used to be two small hamlets. The village that is now Draycot Cerne was called Upper Draycot, while Lower Draycot lay between the main road and Draycot House.

The lodge and driveway did not exist before the mid 1800s; there was just a track that only went as far as the lake, and there was no bridge over the lake to Draycot House and St James's Church. Either side of the track were a few houses and the original Draycot Rectory. The Rectory can be seen at Number 96 on the map, with an additional Glebe House at No 98.

All the houses in Lower Draycot, including the Rectory, were demolished in the 1860s / 1870s to enable Lord Cowley, the new Lord of the Manor, to re-landscape his Park. The 'Old Rectory' on the main road was built to replace the one which had been demolished. Four pairs of new houses were also built in Upper Draycot between 1869 and 1874 for the previous inhabitants of Lower Draycot.

The original Rectory would have been a large, substantial stone building; The Rector in 1841 was Henry Barry and his wife Elizabeth, who had been born in Sutton Benger. There were 17 people living in the house at the time of the Census, including servants, Revd. Barry's mother-in-law, and other extended family. Henry Barry's daughter Emma later became a minor Victorian author, as Emma Newby, and had several novels published.

Living there in the 1850s, 60s and 70s were the Reverend Charles Awdry, with a similar-sized household, including (in 1851) 8 children, a governess and 5 servants.

There were also at least 6 other houses, outhouses, barns etc, which were removed from Lower Draycot; however, the families who had to move were undoubtedly moving to newer houses.