As you walk among the trees here you are standing on what was once the Top lodge for Cowley Manor, if you continue down the road to Cowley as you cross over the bridge the drive to the manor is on your left and there used to be another lodge house there. They were staffed by gate keepers as between the pillars there used to stand a set of lovely wooden gates, as this was a private road to the manor.
There used to be lights on top of the pillars and the road was lit by lamp posts using electric supplied by a turbine in the manor grounds, i remember them being there when i was a child.
The top lodge had no water supply and the keeper used to walk across the field opposite to a spring to fetch water!!! Interestingly in that field the Romans built a vast Villa complex, which was excavated by Time Team a few years ago.. be nice to think they used the same water source!!
There used to be a giant Wellintonia tree alongside the Bottom lodge which was struck by lightening and blown in two..The lightening then ran along a clothes line and blew a hole in the side of the house!! scaring the life out of my friend who lived there then :-)
Both of the lodges were knocked down by the County Council who owned the manor then, in the early 1960s as they had become unfit to live in..