Sheepwash Lodge

This house was built in 1852 by Lord Lovelace as one of five gatehouses surrounding his Horsley Towers estate. Sheep fleeces were washed in the nearby pond.

Constructed in 1852, Sheepwash Lodge was one of five lodges that served as gatehouses around Lord Lovelace’s Horsely Towers estate. This locally-listed building bears the characteristic Lovelace decorations in flint and brick including a single decorated frieze and four impressive chimneys. 

The cottage originally stood beside a gated driveway leading to the Rectory and Ockham village where Lord Lovelace retained a house. Whilst the Lovelace estate is long gone the iron gates still remain, though fixed open and flanking the entrance to what is now the private residential road Pennymead Drive.

On other side of Pennymead Drive and barely 15 metres away from Sheepwash Lodge lies a large pond used by villagers in former times for washing their sheep fleeces, hence the name of this cottage. Sadly, the thick hedgerow bordering the road today largely obscures this fine pond from public view.