Castle Dillon Twin Gate Lodges, Drummanmore Road, Castle Dillon, Co Armagh

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Pair of square ‘box-type’ Palladian gate lodges with link walls and reconstituted gate pillars. The identical lodges, now derelict, were built in 1760 to accommodate the main entrance gates into the demesne of Castle Dillon, near Armagh. Both are robustly modelled with all four faces lined with high quality rusticated rock-faced limestone of a pink-brown colour. This has deep V-joint channelling and is surmounted all around by a strong cornice. The end-gables, which face north onto the road and south into the parkland, each have a bold pediment with a blind door recess with large keystones in wall below. These distinctive lodges, which are a well known local landmark, are located on the north-west side of the demesne, off the Drummanmore Road, directly facing the intersection of the Ballybrannon Road.

East Lodge: One bay, one-storey building, with roughly square plan, 5.72m x 5.88m (19 ft x 19 ft 6in). It has rusticated walls, 3.60m high, with the north and south sides crowned by a full-width pediment (5.50m high to apex) with moulded stone horizontal raking courses and plain ashlar tympanum. The north wall, facing the road, has a blind doorway, 1.50 x 2.45m, with large triple keystones. The central keystone has a smooth surface, while the two flanking keystones are rock-faced, like the rest of the wall; the surface of the blind doorway is lined with cement. The south façade closely matches the north facade, except that in place of the blind-doorway there is a window. This is subdivided by two mullions and two wooden transoms, with six panes in each division and has a stone sill quite close to the ground. The demesne wall meets the rusticated wall of the east elevation, which otherwise has no features, while the entrance to the building is through a doorway in the west wall. This opening, complete with tripe keystones, is of similar size to the blind opening on the road front. It contains ledged and batten double doors with three over-lights, none now with their glass panes. The roof of the building was formerly slated, but is now mostly ruined. Through this roof a single brick chimneystack rises from the centre of the east wall.

West Lodge: Like the east Lodge, this is also a one bay, one-storey building, with roughly square plan, 5.72m x 5.88m (19 ft x 19 ft 6in). It also has rusticated walls, 3.60m high, with the north and south sides crowned by a full-width pediment (5.50m high to apex) with moulded stone horizontal raking courses and plain ashlar tympanum. The north wall, facing the road, has a blind doorway, 1.50 x 2.45m, with large triple keystones. The central keystone has a smooth surface, while the two flanking keystones are rock-faced, like the rest of the wall; the surface of the blind doorway is lined with cement. As with the east lodge, the south façade closely matches the north facade, except that in place of the blind-doorway there is a sliding sash window (one over one). This window replaced an earlier window, which from photographic evidence we know was similar to the mullioned and transomed window in the east lodge. The demesne wall meets the rusticated wall of the west elevation, which otherwise has no features, while the entrance to the building is through a small 1950s century flat-roofed porch (2 x 2 m). This rises to height of the link wall to the rere and contains openings for a window and door. This porch had been built in front of the original entrance, which like the east lodge had an opening 1.50m x 2.45m with triple keystone above.

Central Gate Pillars and Screen: Two cement rendered walls with concrete coping, 2.50m high and 4.50m long link the gate pillars with the lodges. The present pillars, 3.50m high, are have rusticated limestone surfaces, crowned with a cement cornice and blocking cap. These are a post war rebuild of the original rusticated pillars which had thirteen rock-faced courses, about 6.40m (21 ft) high and were 1.80m (6 ft) square, boasting a substantial cornice and blocking cap. The present pair of wrought iron gates, with square sectioned bars and simple decoration, are the lower half of the original much taller gates.

Historical information

The pair of square ‘box-type’ Palladian gate lodges on the Drummanmore Road are the earliest gate lodges on the demesne and are among the earliest examples of gate lodges in Ulster. They were built in 1760 by Sir Capel Molyneux, 3rd Bart, who had inherited Castle Dillon the previous year after death of Elizabeth St Andre, wife of his uncle, the Rt Hon Samuel Molyneux, the noted mathematician and astronomer. Prior to this period the Molyneaux family, who owned Castle Dillon since it was acquired by the family in 1663, had spent relatively little time on the property. Sir Capel Molyneaux however, was resident here for around six months of the year (until his death in 1797) and during his ownership undertook many improvements, such as a re-building the house in the 1760s, adding the Cooley-designed stable range in 1782 and the same year, building an obelisk on Cannon Hill. He also laid out the present informal landscape park and as part of this process laid out new entrance drives, three of which eventually had gate lodges. After the building of the northern lodges described here in 1760, the ‘Hockley’ lodge was added around 1780 to a design by Cooley (demolished c.2000), while the final lodge was built c.1850 on south-west side of the demesne.

A description of the demesne, published in the ‘European Magazine’ in 1782, stated that the northern lodges were built in 1760. The lodges are known to have been expensive to build, though the sum of £2,000 mentioned in the 1782 article must be an error as this constituted an enormous sum in the mid 18th century. In 1786 the Port Chaise Companion commented that ‘the park gates and offices are in the best style of architecture and elegance’.
Most of the early gate lodges associated with the emerging landscape parks from the 1740s tended to be, like the lodges at Castle Dillon, of double box form. Good parallels for the Castle Dillon lodges are those designed by John Vardy for Harewood park, Hampshire, in 1761. Isaac Ware, Robert Taylor, Henry Keene and James Paine all built such lodges. It has sometimes been claimed that Sir William Chambers was responsible for the Castle Dillon lodges but there is no evidence for this unlikely proposition. The rather ungainly proportions of the gate piers (see below) would suggest that they are the work of a local architect or contactor.

Late Victorian and Edwardian photographic evidence shows that the central gate piers were originally 21 feet (6.40m) tall and 6ft (1.80m) square with thirteen rock-faced rusticated courses and a substantial cornice. The present wrought iron gates are the lower half of the original much taller gates. Castle Dillon house and demesne remained in the Molyneux family until 1926, when it was sold to McAnish & Co. Ltd, who removes the most of the parkland timber. In 1929 Armagh County Council bought the demesne and used the house as a mental institution; it was taken over by the Hospital Authority in 1948. During this time the lodges remained in occupation and around c.1950 a small porch was added to the western lodge entrance. The lodges had been abandoned by the time the army occupied the house and park in the 1970s.

References:
European Magazine, 1782.
Wilson, William (1786). The Post-Chaise Companion’. Dublin.
Coote, Sir Charles (1804) Statistical Survey of County Armagh.
Taylor and Skinner Maps of Ireland, Dublin (1777)
Map of County Armagh by John Rocque (1760)
Paterson, T.G.F. (1950s) ‘Castledillon’. In Armagh Miscellanea, Volume 5, Armagh County Museum,
Harvest Home, Dundalk, 1975, pp134-140;
Dean, J.A.K. (1994) The Gate-Lodges of Ulster, a Gazetteer. UAHS, Belfas.
Kerr, John (1996) ‘Castle Dillon and the Molyneaux Family’ in Journal of the Craigavon Historical Society

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

V. Authorship
W. Northern Ireland/International Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

Good surviving example of square 'box-type' Palladian gate lodges, parallelled to John Vardy's lodges at Harewood Park in Hampshire, also dating to the 1760s. Gate lodges of this early date are rare in Ireland, while this type of Palladian rusticated double box type form is probably a unique survival in Ireland. Unfortunately, the original very tall rusticated gate piers were rebuilt in the post 1950 era, while the original wrought iron gates were halved in size, but the fine rusticated exterior walls and pediments of the lodges survive intact and form an important local landmark on the Drummanmore Road, outside Armagh.