Gate Lodge 68 Main Street, Portglenone, Ballymena, Co Antrim, BT44 8HS

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached one-and-a-half storey, two-bay rendered Victorian gate lodge, built c.1870, located on west side of former north entrance drive to Portglenone House (HB07/06/010). L-plan with single-storey timber porch in re-entrant angle and lower single-storey return to west gable, having lean-to kitchen extension and built into wall of adjoining walled garden to west; second walled garden to south.

Pitched natural slate roof with angled ridge tiles and plastic gutters on timber sheeted eaves with cast-iron downpipes; cement-rendered chimneystack with concrete coping to party wall with terracotta pots, timber barge boards to gables with sheeted soffits, moulded brackets and finials. Porch has monopitched fish-scale slate roof with rounded exposed rafter tails. Walling is roughcast cement-render with flat-rendered quoin-banding over a smooth-rendered plinth course. Generally round-headed windows, except where stated differently, with stone sills and rendered moulded surrounds and keystones, having 1/1 painted timber sliding sash windows with horns.

Principal elevation faces east with the south bay projecting and gabled, and north bay fully abutted by lean-to porch at ground floor. Single square-headed door opening in re-entrant flank with chamfered moulded reveal containing timber-sheeted replacement door. Paired windows to ground-floor of south bay with shorter single window to gable above stepped moulded string-course; single window in north bay porch. Turned painted timber framework to porch with stop-end chamfered timber braced panels below.

South elevation has central window to ground-floor with stepped string-course continued from east elevation and smooth-rendered blind roundel to first-floor. Mono-pitched slated kitchen extension to south elevation of return with skylight and adjoining door lobby.

West elevation is blank except for single square-headed 1/1 timber sliding sash to left side of gable. Elevation of single-storey return is blank.

North elevation has straight string-course continued from east elevation and single window to first-floor gable.

Set to west side of entrance to supermarket carpark, outside of recent steel gates, with tarmacked road surface hard up against east elevation. Small enclosed garden to south of lodge and courtyard to north with engaged monopitched shed. To north is historic block and sneck basalt boundary wall with sandstone coping extending west to Bann Bridge (HB07/06/017) and rising at east end to square pier with moulded sandstone cornice and plain frieze; lower gate-screen wall extends towards gate lodge terminating in rebuilt second pier; historic gates are not extant. To east of driveway are two further gate piers with replacement steel gates and curved gate-screen wall.

Gate lodge is engaged to northeast corner of historic upper walled garden to Portglenone House. Rubble basalt piers extant to north adjacent to lodge infilled with red brick. Walling of walled garden mostly rubble basalt externally with internal facing of red brick in English garden wall bond over rubble plinth; areas of blockwork and concrete rebuilding; east wall contains foundations and drain of former glasshouses to north section and south section has differentiated construction of regular rectangular redbrick niches infilled flush with rubble basalt; principal entrance in south wall and smaller gate with raised brick surround leading from second walled garden.

Lower walled garden adjoining to southeast corner, having similar wall construction in mostly block and sneck basalt, with chamfered southeast corner and wall rising to either end of west wall. Large entrance to north end of east wall with smaller gates in each other wall, that to south with sandstone surround, otherwise brick surrounds. Interior laid out as garden with lowered wooded section to west. Summerhouse to south wall, canted to north elevation, with natural slate roof with leaded hips and cement-rendered chimneystack integral to boundary wall; rendered walls with overhanging north porch of timber piloti over sandstone patio; double-leaf timber door with glazed panels above timber aprons, and timber architrave. Ornamental pond to centre of upper terrace and extant foundations of former glasshouses against north wall.

Roof: Slate
Walling: Rendered
Windows: Timber
RWG: Plastic and cast-iron

Historical information

Built c.1870, this small lodge was the secondary gate lodge to Portglenone House (HB07/06/010) and first appears on the third edition of the OS maps (1900). The main house was built in 1810 for the Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath, Nathaniel Alexander, a member of a mercantile family from Londonderry, who was a cousin of the 2nd Earl of Caledon and uncle of the future Archbishop of Armagh, William Alexander. The new classical house replaced Portglenone Castle, the remains of which are scheduled nearby (SMR:ANT031:036), and was served by walled gardens and orchards lying to its north. These are shown to have been laid out by the time of the first edition OS map in 1835, one lying slightly northwest of the house and a larger one in the northwest corner of the demesne bounded to the north by Portglenone Main Street. At this time they are not shown to be planted but there are two small structures abutting the north wall of the larger garden. By the 1850s when the second edition OS map was produced the walled gardens had been planted out with axial paths; a range of glasshouses or sheds had been constructed along the east wall of the upper garden and the summer house appears in the corner of the lower garden. The principal drive was laid out on the first edition and a gate lodge was built c.1840 at its east end (Dean). The secondary entrance drive to the north had been laid out by the second edition map, running past the walled gardens, but the north lodge is not yet shown. In c.1866 Robert Jackson Alexander, the bishop’s grandson, undertook extensive repairs and improvements at Portglenone House to the value of about £2800, employing the architect Fitzgibbon Louch to carry them out (DIA). Louch was a well-connected Irish architect based in Londonderry from 1859-1870. It is unclear whether the construction of the north gate lodge was part of these improvements but they certainly included the building of “new stables” across the north drive from the gate lodge which were demolished in the creation of the present supermarket. Following these improvements the value of the house and outbuildings was increased from £193 to £203. In the census of 1901 the lodge housed one of the demesne’s gardeners, Neil Kenney and his two unmarried daughters. In 1948 Major Robert Christopher Alexander sold Portglenone House and grounds to the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance (Trappists) and the house remains in use as the monastic guesthouse while the lower walled garden is used as a private garden for the monks. The adjoining Abbey of Our Lady of Bethlehem (HB07/06/040) was built in 1948 to designs by Paul Murray and remains in use by the Cistercian community. The gate lodge has been the residence of a retired diocesan priest since the 1990s.

References
Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/31/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1835
2. PRONI OS/6/1/31/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1864
3. PRONI OS/6/1/31/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1900-1906
4. PRONI OS/6/1/31/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1905-1957
5. PRONI VAL/2/A/3/16A – Griffiths Valuation field map 1861
6. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/19 – Griffiths Valuation field book 1861

Secondary Sources
Dean, J.A.K. (1994) The Gate Lodges of Ulster. UAHS, Belfast.

Online Sources
http://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.com/2016/08/portglenone-house.html
https://www.dia.ie/works/view/48279/building/CO.+ANTRIM%2C+PORTGLENONE+HOUSE
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Antrim/Portglanone/Garvaghy/940855/

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

The north gate lodge at Portglenone House is a small Victorian lodge, built c.1870, located at the former north entrance to the demesne. Externally, it is neatly proportioned and retains ornament and simple detailing which distinguish it with the character of an estate building, notably an attractive ornamental timber porch with fish-scale slate roof. Arranged around an L-plan with a west return, the lodge is internally largely authentic. The setting has been greatly obscured by the loss of the demesne's north drive in the development of a recent supermarket and carpark and the relocation of the adjacent gate piers. This makes the lodge and surviving piers particularly important as they provide evidence of the legibility of the historic estate. Likewise, its grouping beside the upper walled garden helps emphasise the former estate landscape. The walled gardens mostly retain their historic basalt walls faced with red brick internally, although in places there have been heavy-handed cementitious or blockwork repairs. The lower garden retains the most historic features including the foundations of original glasshouses and a nineteenth-century summer-house with stove and timber porch. Together they significantly enhance the group value of this important registered demesne.

General comments

Listing Query ref: HB/LQ068