Whitegate Lodge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey house, formerly a gate lodge, laid out on an asymmetrical plan, with gabled roofs and a central group of octagonal chimneys. Main entrance faces south.

South elevation comprises a two-storey block with a two-storey gabled bay to the left of a projecting single storey porch, with a lower 1½ storey block extending to the right. Roofs are of Bangor blue slates in regular courses with lead covering to ridges; overhanging timber gables, with barge boards of elaborate cusped design, painted white. Barge bards of main gable are recent replacements approximating to the original design.
Walls of roughly coursed basalt rubble, with raised rusticated quoins to extremities; quoins may have been sandstone originally, painted black with walling between long quoin blocks painted light grey, but some quoins are recent replacements in smooth render, painted; projecting smooth rendered plinth, painted dark grey. Grey sandstone dressings to windows with red brick segmental relieving arches and spandrel panels.
Windows rectangular PVC, side-hung casements with fixed side lights and fixed top lights; 3-light to ground floor of gabled bay, 2-light to first floor of gabled bay and to ground floor of lower block to right. Chamfered stone surrounds to windows, painted dark grey, with PVC panels fixed to reveals; projecting stone cills, painted dark grey.
Satellite dish affixed to left-hand side of gabled bay by iron bracket.

Gabled porch of ashlar sandstone, with projecting plinth, all painted dark grey; roof slated as main roof; shaped barge boards original. PVC gutter to east side of porch, with cast iron downpipe; damaged cast iron gutter to west side with cast iron downpipe. One narrow window in each side wall of porch, round headed with chamfered edge continuous, containing recessed fixed light. Main entrance is semi-elliptically arched, with chamfered edge; contains a pair of arch-headed double doors, each 3-panel, raised and fielded, in wooden surround. Modern tiles to projecting doorstep.

PVC gutter to roof of main two-storey block, with PVC downpipe discharging into gutter of porch; similar rainwater goods and arrangement to lower block to east.

West elevation comprises a symmetrical arrangement of gabled two-storey bays slightly projecting, with blank walling to each side and between bays; walling as previous to entrance front including quoins to extremities of bays; roof of main block slated as previous; slightly off-centre chimney stack containing a group of four tall pots; pots original octagonal, moulded, painted light grey; two pots to each face; chimney stack smooth cement rendered with plain projecting cornice, painted light grey.
Roofs of projecting bays are slated as previous, with similar shaped barge boards, recent replacements approximating to original shape. PVC gutters to sides of bays and to main roof; three cast iron downpipes, with shaped moulded three-quarter octagonal cast iron hoppers. Each bay has one window in each floor, all PVC, 3-light to ground floor and 2-light to first floor, as previous to entrance front, in similar surrounds to entrance front. Window heads all of flat-arch type; appear to be smooth cement render, lined, and painted dark grey.

Extending to the left-hand side and set back slightly, is a lean-to single storey block projecting from the north elevation: walls smooth cement rendered, painted; timber barge board; one window in west face, rectangular timber fixed light to two-panels.

North elevation comprises a two-storey gable to the right with the rear wall of the two-storey entrance block set back to the left, one window wide, with the lower 1½ storey block to the east extending to the left and a gabled single storey block projecting forward from it. Walling of two-storey gabled block to right is brick painted light grey, with raised rusticated stone or rendered quoins painted dark grey; walling of 1½ storey block to east is masonry similar to entrance front, with a small portion of red brick infill; walling of gabled single storey block is of basalt rubble, without quoins; south gable partly painted light grey; brick dressings to window in gable, painted light grey. Roofs slated as previous; gutters of PVC; downpipes and soil pipes of PVC. Shaped timber barge boards to gables, recent replacements, as previous. One window in first floor of two-storey gable; rectangular PVC, set in similar surrounds as to previous elevations; lean-to single storey block projects forward, with roof of corrugated iron; PVC gutter on timber fascia; one window in south face of lean-to, rectangular timber 2-light casements, small paned. Door in east side of lean-to block, rectangular timber, ledged, in timber surround.
One window in first floor of rear elevation of entrance block, rectangular PVC, 2-light, in similar surround as previous.
One window in gable of single storey block, rectangular PVC fixed light with top-hung vent; with light grey painted brick dressings and concrete lintel; dark grey painted projecting concrete cill; light grey painted brick relieving arch and brick spandrel fillings.
To rear of single storey gabled block is a single chimney: smooth cement rendered base with angled haunches; light grey brick stack with plain concrete courses; modern red clay pot. Original yard or space between gabled blocks now roofed over; white painted wooden fascia; walling of brickwork painted light grey containing a rectangular PVC door, glazed 2-panel; with projecting corrugated perspex open porch on steel post and timber frame; PVC rainwater goods.

East elevation comprises mainly the east gable of the 1½ storey block with the single storey rear return extending to the right.
East gable walling as previous to entrance elevation: shaped timber barges as previous; two windows, one to each floor, both PVC 2-light, the ground floor one with top lights, the first floor one without top lights; with surrounds and relieving arches as previous to entrance elevation. Single storey rear return set back to right is of blank masonry, as previous, but without quoins; PVC gutter and downpipe.

SETTING: The building stands near a corner of the main road but set back from it within its own garden, and facing toward a side road, formerly a driveway into Langford Lodge estate. House surrounded by a concrete path around its base. Boundary to front formed by a low vertically slatted timber fence; boundary to east formed by white timber horizontal fencing between grey concrete brick piers with concrete copings, with mature hedge behind. Vehicular gateway to east formed by a pair of vertically slatted timber gates, painted white. Pedestrian gateway to front formed by low vertically slatted timber double gates. To the rear of the house is a field bordered by hedges. Adjoining the boundary fencing to the front is a large vehicular gateway, originally an entrance gateway to Langford Lodge, formed by a pair of bulky piers of masonry construction, or stuccoed finish, and painted dark grey, mounted with a pair of later wrought iron gates of ornamental design, painted white, but not the original gates. Raised lozenge motif to face of each pier, replacing original laurel wreaths.

Historical information

Built originally as a gate lodge to Langford Lodge when the estate was owned by the Pakenham family; precise date of building not recorded but it appears for the first time on the OS map of 1858; architect not recorded but it has been tentatively attributed elsewhere to Richard Morrison on stylistic grounds. An old photograph shows that the smaller chimney stack to the east was originally comprised of two tall octagonal chimneys similar to the main stack as present. It also shows that there were smaller secondary gate piers containing small pedestrian gates at the adjacent entrance gateway, extending to railings on a plinth wall across the road-side boundary of the gate lodge.
Adjacent entrance gate piers built earlier, c 1820s, as an entrance to Langford Lodge for General Hercules Pakenham; architect not recorded but it has also been attributed elsewhere on stylistic grounds to the Morrisons, Richard or his son William, although James McBlain was recorded in the 1830s as the architect of the main house contemporary with it.
Langford Lodge in the 18th century was originally a small fishing lodge owned by Hon Hercules Langford Rowley; it was replaced in 1785 by “a castellated structure”, for the grandfather of Sir Hercules Pakenham, which in turn was replaced in 1821 by a three-storey country house in Classical style for Sir Hercules Pakenham himself, with James McBlain of Co Down recorded as architect. The house of 1821 was demolished c 1950s. In the 1940s the estate had been used as an American military base; subsequently it was used for industrial and agricultural purposes. The former entrance gateway adjacent to the Whitegate Lodge now leads to a small housing development.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1858, Co Antrim 58 (marked simply as ‘Gate Lodge’).
2. Photograph in Green Collection, U.F.T.M. (W.A.G. 1221).
3. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Vol 35: Parishes of County Antrim XIII, 1833, 1835, 1838 (Belfast, 1996), pp 13, 42.
Secondary Sources
1. U.A.H.S., West Antrim (Belfast, 1970), p 12 (reproduces photograph from Green Collection).
2. J.A.K. Dean, The Gate Lodges of Ulster (Belfast, 1994), pp 18 and 19.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This is an early to mid 19th century building in a Tudor Revival style which exhibits the proportions, ornamentation, and plan form characteristic of its original building type and period. It is of local interest as a relic of the 19th century development of Langford Lodge estate.