Main Gate Lodge and Gates to Loughanmore

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A 1½ storey 3-bay gate lodge of blackstone rubble with a slated roof adjoining the entrance gateway to Loughanmore. Main entrance faces west.

West elevation is symmetrical with one window to each side of a central doorway.
Roof of Westmorland green slates in diminishing courses, with two segmental roofed dormer windows, white painted timber fascia and soffit.
Two chimneys, one on each gable, of snecked basalt rubble; two pots to each chimney.
Walls of basalt rubble, with gables projecting as buttresses to each extremity.
Cast iron gutter running across the face of the first floor windows, but central portion missing at present; cast iron downpipe to right-hand side.
Windows are rectangular metal small-paned casements in timber frames with lead cills, set in segmental arched openings; windows in poor condition.
Entrance contains a rectangular timber glazed and sheeted door in a wooden frame set in a segmental arched opening.

North gable of similar walling; two windows to ground floor, segmental arched; timber barge boards to gable.

Rear elevation is of similar character to front: one broad 5-light segmental roofed dormer window to the first floor, of similar casements and detailing, with gutter passing in front; one downpipe, to right-hand side, stopping short of ground level as if originally discharging into a barrel. Central doorway, containing a rectangular sheeted door now damaged; to left of door, one window to ground floor, segmental arched as previous but casement now removed and opening closed with concrete blockwork.

South gable is similar to north gable.

SETTING: The lodge stands alongside the recessed main gateway to Loughanmore, with its north gable facing the main road, and the entrance front facing the driveway to the house. It stands in a very rural location with no other buildings in the immediate vicinity; driveway flanked on each side by mature trees, which extend to side and rear of lodge. Rear garden or yard now overgrown with vegetation. Derelict lean-to sheds of brick, timber boarding, and corrugated iron sheeting against boundary wall to main road; one of them the original outside toilet.

GATEWAY
The gateway comprises a pair of double gates in wrought ironwork with cast iron spear-head finials, in very rusted condition, mounted on a pair of large piers of what appears to be local granite, of octagonal section, with panelled faces and moulded caps; sandstone balustrading in a Jacobean style set on a low basalt plinth wall extending to each side to meet smaller polygonal piers of snecked basalt with moulded sandstone caps; extending to each side beyond basalt piers are snecked basalt screen walls with moulded granite or concrete copings, the one to the right angling forward to abut the end pier of the front boundary wall of the estate; the screen wall to the left is linked to the buttress of the lodge, with another short run of screen wall abutting the north buttress of the lodge linking it with the corresponding pier of the front boundary wall to the east of the lodge.
Weathering of materials has made identification of specification sometimes difficult.
Left-hand gate damaged by impact on frame.
End piers of front boundary walls to estate to each side of gateway are square, of snecked basalt rubble, with moulded concrete or granite caps.
Boundary walls to each side are of basalt rubble with basalt rock copings; they extend for a considerable distance along the main road in each direction.

Historical information

Built in 1929 to the designs of Wimperis, Simpson and Guthrie, architects of London, for C.L. MacKean as a new main gate lodge for Loughanmore House, to replace a previous oval lodge; builder, William Laughlin of Antrim; tender price, £755. The contract included alterations to the adjacent gate piers and wing walls, and specified that the stone from the previous cottage was to be re-used in the new lodge, as was the stone and ironwork of the screen walls, balustrade piers and gates.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 50 (shows a previous gate lodge).
2. Specification and correspondence of June 1929 in possession of owner in 1999.
Secondary Sources
1. J.A.K. Dean, The Gate Lodges of Ulster (UAHS, Belfast, 1994), p 21 (but mis-dated and mis-attributed).
2. Heritage Gardens Inventory (Belfast, 1992): An/051.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This is an inter-war gate lodge of distinct proportions in an Arts and Crafts style. It enjoys a pleasant rural setting and together with its adjoining gateway forms part of an attractive group.It also has the association with the Loughanmore Estate and the various buildings belonging to it

General comments

These buildings were recorded in the first survey under HB20/06/005.