Carnforth Lodge Lancaster Road

Lancaster Road c1955
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As a child in the 1960’s and 70’s I went several times with my family to visit Mrs Esther Pomfret (Auntie Ettie to us; she was a relation of my father's) at Carnforth Lodge, Lancaster Road.  I don't think this is shown in the photo.

The first time I went there I was fascinated by the old house.  It had a musty smell which I remember distinctly.  The very low ceilinged kitchen had a big old table in the centre.  From there a narrow passageway led to the rest of the house; on one side a sort of “snug” and dining area with a big bay window and window seat looking over the garden, and across the passage (overlooking Lancaster Road) a long drawing room.   The formal entrance hall contained a huge bell suspended on a wooden frame which Auntie Ettie had brought there from Netherbeck, the farm she’d shared with her brother Tommy Dinsdale.   There it had been used to summon farmhands to meals.

Upstairs I remember 4 bedrooms; one over the entrance hall, 2 along the front and one over the kitchen.  This last was a great fascination; the ceiling sagged so much that I wondered how my parents dared to sleep in the bed below it.   If that wasn’t enough for a town child from the “soft south” one corner of the bed was held up by a milking stool!  Down a few steps was an enormous bathroom which could be accessed from another bedroom by a short flight of stairs with a door at each end.

Old house, passageways, secret stairs, antique furniture, dark corners…my imagination told me there must be a ghost but no one else seemed worried at the prospect.

In the middle of that night there was a thunder storm.  It went on and on, the thunder and lightning became more intense; in the end I was so frightened that I rushed out into the passage.  It was too far in the dark to my parents' room so I ran to my grandmother’s room.  She often told me later on that I had been shaking like a leaf

Through a gate at the bottom of the garden and up a hill was a brick built tower (perhaps it was a folly) overlooking the railway.  We used to go up there to watch the trains, but the tower itself was unsafe and locked up.

At the front of the house I remember a dry stone wall topped with larger stones set on end.  On one side was a quarry and on the other a gravel drive overhung by a copper beech(?) led to the garden.   Next door on that side was a garage or filling station.  I suspect that the land on both sides had belonged to The Lodge in the past but had been sold off over the years.

Some time in the 1940’s Auntie Ettie had married Joe Pomfret (a local barber) and after WW2  they’d bought The Lodge.  The story goes that the money came from a win on the "Irish Sweep."  The house was full of antiques; apparently these were very easy to buy after that war.

By coincidence we heard ellsewhere that The Lodge had been an officers’ billet during WW2 but have no way of knowing if this is true.

I have many happy memories of time spent at Auntie Ettie’s; she was a great character with many tales to tell and just as many told about her.  She died in 1981 or ‘82, the house was sold and eventually pulled down to make way for a supermarket.

I haven’t visited the town since but would have loved to know more of the history of  Carnforth Lodge.  Trawling round the web has not revealed much about it; if the house were still standing I am sure there would have been many references.  However, I did come across a map from the late 1700’s showing the property in a larger plot of land, and a reference describing Carnforth Lodge in 1837 as the "seat" of someone called Thomas Jackson.