Draycot Lodge / Front Lodge - The Entrance to Draycot Park
The Lodge, on the main road from Sutton Benger to Draycot Cerne, is actually the 'new' entrance to Draycot Park and House. The 'old' entrance used to be from the west, on the Stanton road (today's B4122). It is one of four 1800s lodges around the estate, and is referred to in various documents as 'Draycot Lodge' or as 'Front Lodge'. The other lodges were Scotland Lodge (on the road from Stanton to Seagry), Slates Lodge and Plains Lodge (both on the B4122).
Nesta Heath remembered life in Draycot Cerne and Sutton Benger as a child in the 1920s / 1930s. ‘There were lodges at all the entrances to the house, Front Lodge being on the main road where the butler Mr Rich lived with his wife and son, Arthur.’ (Nesta Heath, Life and Herbing, p. 18).
Note that the PRoW opposite Front Lodge, signposted on the south side of the main road, will take you across the fields towards Roward Farm and eventually to Kington Langley.
Francis Kilvert
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
The Old Rectory, Lower Draycot
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.