Downpatrick gate

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Large, relatively plain, curving gate screen of perhaps c.1820, fronting the eastern (‘Downpatrick’) entrance to Seaforde Demesne. The entrance is located to the W side of Newcastle Road, roughly half a mile N of Seaforde, c.5 miles W of Downpatrick.

The screen consists of a high lined rendered curving wing walls with tall square gate piers and two sets of shorter outer piers. The wall is topped with granite coping and curving wrought iron spear head railings. The gate piers have granite caps and ball pinnacles. There is a narrow projecting course just below just below the cap. The shorter outer piers (two to each end) have shallow pyramidal caps. Both the wall and the piers have bevelled bases.

The curving carriage gates themselves are similar in style to the railings, but have a decorative ‘band’ at roughly head height.

Shrubbery is gradually encroaching on the walls and piers.

Historical information

The eastern entrance to Seaforde Demesne is shown on the OS map of 1834, with the above gate screen believed to have been erected c.1820. The authorship is uncertain, but it may have been the work of Peter Frederick Robinson, who was employed by Col. Matthew Forde during this time (and who probably designed Seaforde House). Some time between c.1834 and c.1858 a gate lodge was built on the opposite side of the Newcastle Road. This was replaced in c.1860 by the current lodge, set, in the more conventional manner, behind the screen itself

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D.366 Forde papers
2 Drawings of Seaforde House in 1833 and other unexecuted designs for gates etc. (the latter by P.F. Robinson), c.1825 [In possession of Mr Patrick Forde.]
3 PRONI OS/6/3/37/1 OS map, Down sh 37, 1834
4 PRONI OS/6/3/37/2 OS map, Down sh 37, c.1858
5 PRONI OS/6/3/37/3 OS map, Down sh 37, c.1901

Secondary sources
1 J.A.K. Dean ‘The gate lodges of Ulster- a gazetteer’ (Belfast UAHS 1994), p.95

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
V. Authorship

Evaluation

Large, relatively plain, curving gate screen of perhaps c.1820, fronting the eastern (‘Downpatrick’) entrance to Seaforde Demesne. It has group value with the rest of the Seaforde estate buuildings.