The Turret House
The Turret House
The turret house is the only building of the Manor Lodge to survive intact to the present day. It is a three-storied stone building with a circular brick turret giving access to the flat roof. The building was built slightly later than the other buildings, in about 1574 in the time of the 6th Earl. Because this is the period that Mary Queen of Scots was being held in Sheffield, for some of the time at the Manor Lodge, it has been supposed that the Turret House was built as her prison. There is, in fact, no record to support this and it is most unlikely that she would have been held in such an insecure position.
In all probability the building served several purposes. Its most likely primary function was as a gate house to stand beside the main reception gates to the Manor.
There is also a theory that the building was constructed to conform to the prevailing aristocratic fashion for ‘banqueting houses’ in which an elaborate sweet course could be taken following a banquet. The turrets on the roof of Hardwick Hall served a similar function. Certainly the elaborately decorated upper room, with its plaster work ceiling and Talbot arms above the fireplace, suggest a far more grand use than simple as a gate lodge.
In addition, the construction of the roof, with its early brick round stair turret and strangely diagonally placed chimneys, suggests that this was designed as a place to survey the park and watch the hunt. Certainly, even today with the surrounding houses, the view from the roof is commanding.
After the beginning of the 17th century, when the Dukes of Norfolk became lords of the manor, the Lodge was no longer required as a place of residence and it gradually fell into decay. In 1707 most of it was demolished and the land rented out to labourers, miners and farmers. Wolsey’s tower was for a time occupied by a potter. The remaining buildings fronting onto Manor Lane survived into Victorian times as a public house.
At some time in the 18th century the Turret House became part of a complex of farm buildings, as is clearly shown in a number of prints from the late 18th and 19th centuries.
In 1871 the Turret House was ‘rediscovered’ by Henry Howard, the 15th Duke of Norfolk, who commissioned his architect, Charles Hadfield, to restore the building.
