porter's lodge

• porter-lodge, porters' lodge

porter's lodge (plural porters' lodges)

1. A building for the porter(s) near the gate of a castle, college, etc., (historical) formerly used as a place of punishment for the staff.
   • 1471, Account Rolls of the Abbey of Durham, Vol. III, 644:

     Factura muri infra le Porterloge.

   • 1819 August 30, Times, p. 2:

     The keys... were on Saturday stolen from the porter's lodge.

2. (Britain, Canada) An equivalent room near the gate of a college, chiefly used as a mailroom.
   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, p. 54:

     ...he walked across Hawthorn Tree Court on his way to the porter's lodge... At the lodge he cleared his pigeon-hole.

• (all): plodge, lodge
• (building): see guardhouse
• (room): see mailroom

• plodge

• “porter, n.¹.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.