A slice of history still clinging on against a space-age backdrop

The ruins of the 17th-century hunting lodge stand high in the Washburn valley, just north of Otley. In the background, the iconic ‘golf balls’ of American listening base Menwith Hill provide a stark contrast to the historic bricks and mortar in front.

The building, which featured in an early 19th-century watercolour by JMW Turner, was originally one of a trio of lodges that provided shooting parties with shelter from the biting moorland winds.

While it was scheduled in 1997 as an Ancient Monument, receiving Grade II listing wasn’t enough to protect it from the elements. Three years ago English Heritage noticed the building was at risk of collapse and offered a £100,000 rescue package for the most urgent repairs to the crumbling masonry.

The lodge was built for Sir Mauger Vavasour and was reputedly shelled by Cromwellian soldiers in the 1640s during the English Civil War. Converted into a farmhouse, it was in use right up until the first decades of the 19th-century, but when the last occupants left it didn’t take long for nature to reclaim the site.

“In its hey-day the hill-top lodge with its roaring fires would have provided a respite from the wind and rain,” said an English Heritage spokesman. “But by the time Turner painted it in 1815 it was already probably quite ruinous. Today it is a landmark on the Turner Trail and an historic building in its own right which we are keen to see safeguarded.”

The painting, featuring the lodge in the background, was one of several watercolours commissioned by Sir William Pilkington, a friend of Turner’s patron Walter Fawkes.

Technical details: Nikon D3s, 28-70mm lens, 125th @f20, 200 ISO