The History of Brackenber Lodge. My interpretation.
My mid sized garden is situated fellside and in the grounds of the old workhouse for the Shap Ward built solidly by the Victorians in the 18th century. The garden was created after the removal of two original stone buildings (isolation wards) which at the time of 1950 ish were then two small one roomed stone cottages. These two tiny buildings were raized to the ground after a fatal fire in the 1950s. However in the present day, much of the original structure of the building is still remarkably intact and is surprisingly not listed at all. It was completed and opened as Shap Wards Workhouse around 1840 but closed in the early 1900s and is now known locally as Brackenber Lodge. The buildings are described as being built in the Neo Grecian (literally new greek) style with a central finial tower being a prominent feature on the roof line.
Its time as a workhouse was relatively shortlived and little remains in the recorded historical context of the workhouse. There are some archives at Shap Heritage Centre and in the larger Westmorland archives in Kendal. This imposing and atmospheric building really is one of the last few remaining characteristic buildings left in Shap village. Despite this, the large, evocative and looming building goes largely unnoticed until you spot it of course. It is an interesting well built building with a fascinating history which is now well over 150 years old and has stood the test of time.
The striking original building and boundaries remain mainly intact and is built slightly cruciform in grey stone and slate (the local materials) with an elaborate central finial tower crowned with an elaborate series of metal florets (flowers and foliage) on top. The tower (which originally housed the water supply tank) is built centrally above what would have been the Masters house. The frontage of the Lodge facing south is more ornate with feature porches, and echoes of the large central doorway with stone decorations denoting the Masters house.
The present front gardens were added later way after the workhouse. The workhouse frontage would have had a wall and locked gates and a courtyard for carts etc. It would have looked brooding and foreboding and dark to anyone passing it. The buildings behind the front facade are plainer and definately Utilitarian in style but still solidly built. The original template for the building was for it to be completely self contained and isolated.
The building would have been obscured from public view by a bank of large sycamore trees all around its periphery, only 4 of which remain standing now. The buildings interior was mirrored (split down the middle) given the fact that gentlemen and ladies would have been kept seperate from each other, so there is two of everything. Thank God for the demise of sexual segregation.
After the workhouse movement it then became a childrens home and later it provided much needed shelter for many of the displaced people from the war time. After the second world war it was then sold to The Shap Granite Company as housing for their workers working at the Shap Pink and Shap Blue quarries. The Granite Companies then began to privately sell off the buildings as seperate residences from the late 40s gradually and periodically afterwards. The buildings surprisingly are not listed and the present houses all still sit well within the original walls and buildings.
In the workhouse days it would have felt extremely claustrophobic, " it was a dismal hovel but better than being homeless" it was dirty and unsanitary "but it was one step up from being dead". Many poor, unfortunate souls would have lived within its walls. And it still has echoes of the maze of closely set alleyways still evident around the back of the Lodge to this day. The workhouse had its own hospital wards, sleeping wards, isolation wards, kitchens, dining rooms, laundries, bakeries, a Gaol or jail, its own water supply (the purpose of the tower). It even had a morgue and a mortuary and a surgical suite in the loosest sense of the word of course. Remarkable isnt it?.
In modern day Shap, Brackenber Lodge can now be seen from both the M6 and the A6 since many of the trees that kept it hidden are now gone. It was modernised on the inside during the 1950s and the 1970s. There are now several privately owned houses within its existing boundary with five large houses on the front and several more round the back and around the main building boundary. All contained within the existing building and grounds. Most recent changes have been a new sensitively built house in keeping with the existing buildings and a completely new water supply to all the properties bar one> the old hospital ward building at the back.
It lies Southwest at the old Brackenber End of Shap village. The village of Shap is an ancient place (Shappe or Hepp in the old language) the long linear largely greystone village straddles both sides of the old A6 road over Shap Fell for 2 miles South to North. My garden lies at the back of the Lodge.
My mid sized garden is situated fellside and in the grounds of the old workhouse for the Shap Ward built solidly by the Victorians in the 18th century. The garden was created after the removal of two original stone buildings (isolation wards) which at the time of 1950 ish were then two small one roomed stone cottages. These two tiny buildings were raized to the ground after a fatal fire in the 1950s. However in the present day, much of the original structure of the building is still remarkably intact and is surprisingly not listed at all. It was completed and opened as Shap Wards Workhouse around 1840 but closed in the early 1900s and is now known locally as Brackenber Lodge. The buildings are described as being built in the Neo Grecian (literally new greek) style with a central finial tower being a prominent feature on the roof line.
Its time as a workhouse was relatively shortlived and little remains in the recorded historical context of the workhouse. There are some archives at Shap Heritage Centre and in the larger Westmorland archives in Kendal. This imposing and atmospheric building really is one of the last few remaining characteristic buildings left in Shap village. Despite this, the large, evocative and looming building goes largely unnoticed until you spot it of course. It is an interesting well built building with a fascinating history which is now well over 150 years old and has stood the test of time.
The striking original building and boundaries remain mainly intact and is built slightly cruciform in grey stone and slate (the local materials) with an elaborate central finial tower crowned with an elaborate series of metal florets (flowers and foliage) on top. The tower (which originally housed the water supply tank) is built centrally above what would have been the Masters house. The frontage of the Lodge facing south is more ornate with feature porches, and echoes of the large central doorway with stone decorations denoting the Masters house.
The present front gardens were added later way after the workhouse. The workhouse frontage would have had a wall and locked gates and a courtyard for carts etc. It would have looked brooding and foreboding and dark to anyone passing it. The buildings behind the front facade are plainer and definately Utilitarian in style but still solidly built. The original template for the building was for it to be completely self contained and isolated.
The building would have been obscured from public view by a bank of large sycamore trees all around its periphery, only 4 of which remain standing now. The buildings interior was mirrored (split down the middle) given the fact that gentlemen and ladies would have been kept seperate from each other, so there is two of everything. Thank God for the demise of sexual segregation.
After the workhouse movement it then became a childrens home and later it provided much needed shelter for many of the displaced people from the war time. After the second world war it was then sold to The Shap Granite Company as housing for their workers working at the Shap Pink and Shap Blue quarries. The Granite Companies then began to privately sell off the buildings as seperate residences from the late 40s gradually and periodically afterwards. The buildings surprisingly are not listed and the present houses all still sit well within the original walls and buildings.
In the workhouse days it would have felt extremely claustrophobic, " it was a dismal hovel but better than being homeless" it was dirty and unsanitary "but it was one step up from being dead". Many poor, unfortunate souls would have lived within its walls. And it still has echoes of the maze of closely set alleyways still evident around the back of the Lodge to this day. The workhouse had its own hospital wards, sleeping wards, isolation wards, kitchens, dining rooms, laundries, bakeries, a Gaol or jail, its own water supply (the purpose of the tower). It even had a morgue and a mortuary and a surgical suite in the loosest sense of the word of course. Remarkable isnt it?.
In modern day Shap, Brackenber Lodge can now be seen from both the M6 and the A6 since many of the trees that kept it hidden are now gone. It was modernised on the inside during the 1950s and the 1970s. There are now several privately owned houses within its existing boundary with five large houses on the front and several more round the back and around the main building boundary. All contained within the existing building and grounds. Most recent changes have been a new sensitively built house in keeping with the existing buildings and a completely new water supply to all the properties bar one> the old hospital ward building at the back.
It lies Southwest at the old Brackenber End of Shap village. The village of Shap is an ancient place (Shappe or Hepp in the old language) the long linear largely greystone village straddles both sides of the old A6 road over Shap Fell for 2 miles South to North. My garden lies at the back of the Lodge.