Main gateway of Manor House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A set of vehicular and pedestrian gates flanked by curving balustraded screen walls. Main front faces approximately north-west.

Front elevation: a symmetrically arranged central vehicular gateway comprising a pair of elaborately scrolled wrought iron carriage gates flanked by pairs of tall rusticated cut-stone piers with moulded vermiculated bases, shafts of alternating courses of broad facetted blocks and vermiculated blocks with central diamond-facetted stones, friezes bearing raised arabesque ornamentation, moulded cornices, and each surmounted by a carved stone dragon emerging from a floriated finial. Mounted between each pair of piers is a pedestrian gate of similar design to the carriage gates. Flanking the outer piers are curving screen walls in stone consisting of moulded semi-circular arched balustrading with panelled tapering balustrades carried on a plinth of lozenge-shaped rubble with moulded coping and basecourse; across the top is a large moulded stone rail with a broad tapering pier, every six balusters, carrying an ornamented stone basket. At each outer extremity of the screen walls is a rusticated stone pier of similar design to the central pairs, but without the floriated dragon finials. At the eastern extremity the ground slopes so that there is a portion of rubble stone base.

Rear elevation: similar to the front except that semi-circular arches over the balustrades are unmoulded, the rear faces of the baluster shafts are plain, and the plinth wall of the screens is of snecked rubble rather than lozenge-shaped rubble.

SETTING: The gatescreen stands facing the main street but curving back from it toward the central gateway with a tarmac area in front, leading to a tarmac driveway beyond the gates. Set close behind the screen wall is a pair of gate lodges (HB15/02/002) one to each side of the driveway. Areas behind screens are laid with gravel, extending to grass in the case of the eastern screen. Attached to the easternmost pier and set slightly behind it, is a pedestrian gateway containing a modern timber boarded gate set between plain rubble stone piers.

Historical information

Built in 1842 for Arthur Cope, the gates being manufactured by R. Marshall of Caledon; appears for first time on OS map of 1860. No architect's name recorded. Originally an overthrow linked the two central piers but it was accidentally toppled by a lorry in the 1960s and has not been reinstated. Associated with the gatescreen are two gate lodges which were presumably built at the same time as it. Bought along with the lodges and the rest of the Manor House estate in 1947 by the Ministry of Agriculture.
The structures stand within the area of a monument, no. Armagh 8:9.

References – Primary Sources
1. Original inscription on gates on right-hand stile of eastern carriage gate.
2. OS Map 1860, Co Armagh 8.
3. Original photographs in Lawrence Collection, National Library of Ireland (3623c and 3624c).

Secondary Sources
1. DOENI, Loughgall: A Conservation Village (Belfast, 1993), p 4.
2. J.A.K. Dean, The Gate Lodges of Ulster: A Gazetteer (Belfast, 1994), pp 39-40.
3. P. Reilly, Loughgall: a Plantation parish (Armagh, 1995), p 31.
4. C.E.B. Brett, Buildings of County Armagh (Belfast, 1999), p 206.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

W. Northern Ireland/International Interest
V. Authorship

Evaluation

This is a particularly ornate example of an early Victorian gatescreen in a neo-Jacobean style which retains almost all its original features and combines with its associated twin gate lodges to form the entrance to an important country house demesne.

General comments

The structures extend from H9074 5207 to H9079 5210.