Lodge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single-storey three bay classically styled gate lodge built c.1845 to the designs of architect Thomas Jackson. Rectangular plan form with a large two-storey flat roofed rear extension. Located on Dunbarton Street adjacent to the Gilford Presbyterian Meeting House (HB17/01/016); northwest of the village centre.

Hipped natural slate roof with leaded hips and ridge. Projected eaves with paired eaves brackets. Ogee moulded cast-iron rainwater goods. Smooth rendered chimney with moulded cornice; octagonal clay pots over. Stucco rendered walling with horizontal rusticated channelling framed by Doric pilasters rising to a blank frieze. Segmental arched bi-partite casement windows with margin panes; painted masonry cills with moulded brackets; set into a moulded segmental arched recess with plinth blocks and channelled voussoirs. Segmental arched timber door with moulded surrounds and plinth blocks; bolection moulded lower panels; upper glazing matches windows; brass and cast-iron ironmongery. Replacement tiled step. The door is embraced by an Ionic portico; single columns supporting an entablatured pediment.

The principal elevation faces southwest and is symmetrically arranged. Door centrally located flanked either side by a single window.

The northwest elevation is symmetrically arranged with a single blanked window recess.

The rear elevation is completely abutted by a flat roofed two-storey extension of no interest. Two-rooflights to the rear roof pitch.

The southeast elevation is symmetrically arranged with a single window centrally located.

Setting:

Immediately to the front of the lodge is a small hard-landscaped garden enclosed by a masonry wall beyond which is a busy thoroughfare. The Presbyterian Church (HB17/01/016) situated to the east overlooks and dominates the
setting of the lodge. A double-height rubble masonry wall with remains of a Doric pilaster moulding bounds the site between the lodge and the church.

Roofing: Natural slate
Walling: Stucco render
Windows: Timber
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

The dwelling was built c.1845 as one of two gate lodges to Dunbarton House, the former residence of Hugh Dunbar. The gate lodge is first shown, uncaptioned, on the second edition OS map of 1858 and dimensions are given in Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64). It is not separately valued, however, in Annual Revisions up to 1930. The gate lodge is thought by Dean to be the work of Thomas Jackson, probable architect of the main house. (Dean)

Dunbarton House dates from c.1845 and may be the work of Thomas Jackson who designed a number of houses for wealthy clients in the area. The house was built by Hugh Dunbar (1789-1847) and overlooks the Dunbar McMaster mill in Gilford. (Rankin)

The history of Gilford in the nineteenth century is inextricably linked with the fortunes of the spinning mill, one of the largest in Ireland in the 1840s and the driver of economic growth and social development in the nineteenth century. Hugh Dunbar was the descendant of a linen family, his grandfather having leased a property at Huntley from the Whyte’s of Loughbrickland, where Hugh was manufacturing thread and his hand-loom weavers produced linen cloth. In 1834 the competition from mill-spun yarns, produced by the new wet-spinning process was such that Dunbar was compelled to start his own spinning mill or go out of business. Dunbar chose Gilford as the centre of his new enterprise and Dunbar McMaster & Co spinning mill opened in 1839, Dunbar having gone into partnership with John Walsh McMaster of Armagh. (Logan; Rankin)

Hugh Dunbar died in 1847, shortly after completing his new mansion and in 1858 John Walsh McMaster bought out Dunbar’s surviving relatives and acquired both the mill and Dunbarton House which was his home from at least 1860. Dunbarton House is first shown, captioned, on the second edition OS map of 1858 and is a large mansion house in substantial grounds with a row of outbuildings to the rear and a formal garden to the south-east. The house is first listed in Griffith’s Valuation as the residence of John Walsh McMaster, valued at £67. Dimensions are given for a 2½ storey house with porch flanked by single storey bays. Eight outbuildings are noted and the two gatehouses.

John Walsh McMaster died in 1872 and Dunbarton then passed to McMaster’s eldest son Hugh Dunbar McMaster who was resident in the 22-room mansion at the time of the 1901 census when he was 57. Hugh lived with his Indian-born wife and three daughters aged from 7 to 15. Dunbar McMaster also had at least two sons who had probably been sent away to school, most likely in England. The couple employed a Parisian governess and had a small staff comprising a cook and two housemaids. Interestingly, Dunbar McMaster, himself an Episcopalian, employed a servant from each of the major denominations, Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic. In the year of the census, 1901, Dunbar, McMaster & Co was subsumed with the Barbours into the Linen Thread Company Limited with production continuing at Gilford until the 1980s.

After Hugh Dunbar McMaster’s death in 1907, Dunbarton House lay vacant for a time and in 1915 it was converted into a hospital for wounded soldiers run by the Ulster Volunteer Force and staffed by the U.V.F’s Nursing Corps. By May 1915 the house was providing beds for 214 patients and in the autumn of 1916 an annex of 30 beds was opened in nearby Bannvale House. An illuminated address of thanks, signed by Winston Churchill, was sent to Dunbarton House by the War Office. (Rankin) The last resident to be noted in Annual Revisions was John Archibald Dickie, in 1921, but the house later became the property of the Moodie family, Mr Moodie being proprietor of the mill. The main house remains in private ownership and is still in domestic use today.

A large two-storey extension was constructed to the rear in the twentieth century.
The current gate lodge is no longer part of the estate and is a privately owned dwelling.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/26/1 First Edition OS Map 1834
2. PRONI OS/6/3/26/2 Second Edition OS map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/3/26/3 Third Edition OS Map 1901-2
4. PRONI OS/6/3/26/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1920-21
5. PRONI VAL/1/B/350 Townland Valuation (1828-40)
6. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/48A Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/25A-H Annual Revisions (1864-1930)

Secondary Sources

1. Dean, J. A. K. “The Gate Lodges of Ulster: A Gazetteer.” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1994.
2. Logan, R A “A Window on the Past, A History of Gilford County Down” Banbridge Chronicle, (n.d.)
3. Rankin, K “The Linen Houses of the Bann Valley, The story of their families” Belfast, Ulster Historical Foundation, 2007

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

X. Local Interest
V. Authorship

Evaluation

A single-storey three bay classically styled gate lodge built c.1845 to the designs of architect Thomas Jackson. Externally the lodge has retained much of its historic character, heavily characterised by its stucco mouldings, although the large extension to the rear has a significant impact on the overall setting and general proportions of the lodge. External and internal alterations have detracted from the architectural and historic interest of the building but it forms part of the buildings associated with Dunbarton House (HB17/01/015A) and is a noteworthy example of the work of a significant architect.

General comments

Previously recorded as HB17/01/017