The Layout of the Craft Lodge
A Craft lodge room is the meeting space used by a lodge working the Craft degrees of Freemasonry. It may be part of a purpose-built Masonic hall or an older building adapted for Masonic use. Surviving examples differ in their proportions, decoration, furniture and adjoining rooms: Phoenix Hall in Sunderland was built for the purpose in 1784-1785, while Bath's Old Theatre Royal became a Masonic hall after earlier use as a theatre and a Catholic chapel.[1][2]
The room within the hall
The lodge room is often one part of a building with several functions. At Redruth Masonic Hall, Historic England records a dining room on the lower main floor and a double-height lodge room upstairs. The building also contains a committee room, kitchen, museum and storage. These spaces serve different purposes and should not all be described as the lodge room.[3]
A hall can also be shared by several lodges. The acquisition of the Bath building in 1865 was a joint undertaking by Royal Cumberland, Royal Sussex and Lodge of Honour.[2]
Space and furnishings
Phoenix Hall has a rectangular lodge room with a neoclassical interior. Its three principal chairs belong to the Master and Wardens; the architectural treatment of the walls frames these seats. The room also has an organ gallery, decorative plasterwork and a chequered floor. Historic England records that the principal chairs were acquired from St John's Lodge in Newcastle, illustrating how furnishings could move between lodges.[1]
Redruth offers a different decorative scheme. Its lodge room has a raised dais, an arched ceiling decorated with stars, and a central chequerboard floor. Classical columns and pilasters appear alongside other carved and plaster ornament.[3]
The historic photograph of Paul Revere Lodge provides an American comparison. The Library of Congress identifies the room as belonging to Paul Revere Lodge in Brockton, Massachusetts, and dates the photograph to about 1900. Its visible arrangement includes upholstered seating around an open floor, a central piece of furniture and a raised seating area.[4]
Adaptation and change
Bath's Masonic hall retains features from its earlier uses. When the former chapel was adapted, most pews were removed, while selected pews became seating along the sides. Other pew backs were reused as screens enclosing access and storage areas. A new wall formed an anteroom, and the former theatre stage survived.[2]
Decoration may also belong to a later phase than the building. At Bath, wartime damage led to replacement of the ceiling, including a star pattern representing the sky on the date of the hall's dedication in 1866. At Phoenix Hall, the eighteenth-century room has a twentieth-century floor covering, while the banqueting and entrance ranges were added or altered later.[2][1]
Painted furnishings have their own histories. The Museum of Freemasonry records a tracing board made for Silurian Lodge in Ludlow which later belonged to the Lodge of the Marches. It hung on the meeting-hall wall until the building was sold; the museum acquired it in 2021. Its history shows why the date and provenance of an object need to be distinguished from those of the room containing it.[5]
Buildings and workings
Architectural variation is a separate question from variation in a lodge's working. The Emulation Lodge of Improvement maintains the Emulation working of the Craft degrees.[6] The United Grand Lodge of England recognises several forms of Craft practice; the name of a working should not be treated as the name of an architectural style.[7]
Public displays offer opportunities to examine actual interiors. At Freemasons' Hall in London, the Museum of Freemasonry provides a view of the Kent Room, which remains an active lodge room.[8] The Old Theatre Royal in Bath also offers public tours of its historic building and museum.[9]
See also
- Masonic architecture
- The Officers in a Craft Lodge
- The Three Orders of Architecture
- The Pavement
- History of Masonic regalia
- Masonic museums and libraries
- Summary of the different rites
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Historic England, Phoenix Hall, National Heritage List for England, entry 1279903, especially "History" and "Details". Accessed 24 September 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Old Theatre Royal, Bath, Masonic Hall - since 1865. Accessed 24 September 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Historic England, Redruth Masonic Hall, National Heritage List for England, entry 1482519, "Details: Interior". Accessed 24 September 2026.
- ↑ Library of Congress, Lodge Room, Paul Revere Lodge, F. + A.M., catalogue record 99472531, photograph, c1900; digital identifier cph.3c24537.
- ↑ Museum of Freemasonry, Learn about freemasonry: What are masonic tracing boards?. Accessed 24 September 2026.
- ↑ Emulation Lodge of Improvement, Emulation Ritual. Accessed 24 September 2026.
- ↑ Charles Hopkinson-Woolley, Warmest of welcomes, United Grand Lodge of England, 1 September 2021. Accessed 24 September 2026.
- ↑ Museum of Freemasonry, North Gallery, "View an active lodge room". Accessed 24 September 2026.
- ↑ Old Theatre Royal, Bath, Guided Tours and Masonic Museum. Accessed 24 September 2026.
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