NHER 4650 (Building record) - Thorpe Lodge

Thorpe Lodge.

September 1973. Listed, Grade II.
Listing Description excerpt:
"House, now offices. 1820's. Brick, with roof obscured by parapet after third storey removed. Two storeys. Five bay central block with sashes under gauged skewback arches and with shutters. Central arched entrance with ironwork porch surmounted by ornamental railings. At south-west corner full height bowed extension carried into west facade. Three French windows to ground floor and sashes above as before. Modillion eaves cornice under hipped slate roof.
Interior: Staircase with twisted balusters and decorated string risers. South-west ground floor room with decorated plaster ceiling and cornice; Ionic columns at east end."
Information from (S1).
Please consult the National Heritage List for England (S1) for the current listing details.
P. Watkins (HES), 22 May 2022.

Two contemporary, early 19th-century crinkle-crankle walls to the west of Thorpe Lodge - one to the west of Eden Close and one to the north of 6 Eden Close - were listed Grade II in 1973 and 1974. These are now recorded as NHERs 65592 and 65593 respectively.
P. Watkins (HES), 22 May 2022.

July 1975. Field Observation.
Visited by E. Rose (NAU).
Very fine house said to have been built 1755-1842 though looks earlier. Restored shutters, ironwork porch, interior of southwest room has plaster ceiling and Ionic columns; decorated staircase. When modern Broadland Council offices built alongside in 1974 reports of underground passages found (information from Broadland Planning Dept) - perhaps tunnels under road to staithes, see NHER 4760.
Contemporary crinkle-crankle wall now isolated between Harvey Lane and Eden Close (NHERs 65592).
Compiled by E. Rose (NAU), 19 July 1975. Information from record card (S2).
Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 22 May 2022.

Listing (S1) dates to 1820s and says parapet was added after top storey removed.
E. Rose 29 November 1984.

Wall is listed as well as house.
E. Rose 20 May 1986.

Member of public [2] states that during renovations 1994 it was found that the present brick walls are solid, not an applied skin, and the bricks have horizontal skintlings thus making a date before 1780 unlikely. He believes the old building was demolished and entirely rebuilt around 1800. The top storey was removed in the 1920s. He believes the tunnels reported were old chalk workings.
E. Rose (NLA), 7 November 1994.

Informant [1] adds that after closer inspection he has found both diagonal and horizontal skintlings in the house, which would indicate a late 18th century date at the time of the change of format, rather than 1820 as listing which he suspected was the case anyway.
E. Rose (NLA), 15 December 1994.

See (S3) for a pre-1920 photograph showing the building very different with an extra canted-bay wing to make the whole symmetrical. (S3) also notes that the crinkle wall must date after 1824 when boundary of estate enlarged and road diverted.
E. Rose (NLA), 23 October 2002.

Nuclear bunker under car park constructed 1989 and may have been the last in Britain to be built.
E. Rose (NLA), 29 January 2005.

The Council offices were built in c. 1974, originally for either the Co-op, the gas board or the water authority (or some such), but never occupied by them and taken over by BDC when it was formed in the same year.
The underground bunker was built in 1989, in response to a central government directive that all local authorities must make provision. As a result, this bunker was the last to be built in the country and was completed after the Berlin Wall came down. Planning applications 862631 and 862632, from 1986, are described on BDC's planning application system as being "Construction of Emergency Centre". There are applications in 1989 for alterations to the car park (when it was dug up) and for the radio mast on the building. The bunker is now used by BDC for storage (S4).
D. Gurney (HES), 14 November 2012.