Gate lodge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

The gate lodge Ards District Hospital is an irregular picturesque one and a half storey house of c.1870. It is described by Michael Gould as ‘an interplay of gables, catslides and dormers [which] makes for an interesting outline from all angles’. The building is situated at the entrance to the hospital complex (a former workhouse) on Church Street and constructed in squared basalt with scabbled sandstone quoins and dressings.

The front W facade has a central projecting porch with a flat roof and ‘splayed’ sides. Porch contains a modern (c.1950s-60s) panelled and glazed door with sandstone dressings. Directly above the porch is a squat single pane window (with sandstone ‘lintel’) set in a tall-ish gabled half dormer. To the right of the door is a sash window with ‘lintel’ and as previous. To the left is a squat window.

The N facade has a small single storey, lean to, projection to the far right, which is blank to the N, but whose E facade contains a small-ish square single pane window. The stonework suggests that in place of this window there was once a door. Where the roof of this projection merges with the main roof a small gabled dormer sires which contains a tiny single pane square window. This dormer has no sides with its roof merging into the main roof. To the immediate left of the projection on the N facade is a sash window, with lintel as front.

The right side of the rear facade (E) consists of a gabled bay which is blank (but whose S facade contains a sash window). To the left of the rear facade is a modern window with a timber sheeted door to its immediate right. This window and door have concrete lintels and are separated by a concrete pier, suggesting that this section of the facade was once an open porch. This suggestion is supported, by the presence of another modern window on the far right of the S facade and the evidence of former quoin stone to the left of this window. The S facade itself consists largely of a large one and a half storey (asymmetrical) gabled bay with a sash window to the left on the ground floor, the modern window to the right, and an upper level sash window to the gable apex.

The roof of this building is complex due to the interplay of the gabled bays of various heights. Looking from the SE (in a NW direction) a curious vaguely Scots looking canted half dormer rises from the intersection of the roof of the rear gabled bay and that to the S. This dormer contains an odd tiny ‘corner’ window, with a chimney stack rising from the E face. There is another smaller chimney stack to the ridge of the main roof to the W of this dormer.

All sections of the roof have an overhang with boxed eaves and plain dormers. Cast iron rw goods.

Historical information

This date and architect of this building are as yet unknown, but it may have been built around 1870 (?or perhaps later), and served as the gate lodge for Newtownards Union workhouse (now Ards District Hospital). Currently the lodge appears to be used as occasional living quarters’ for visiting doctors and/or hospital staff. The small room to the south eastern corner of the building appears to have once been an open porch.

References- Secondary sources
1 J.A.K. Dean 'The gate lodges of Ulster- a gazetteer' (UAHS 1994), p.87.
2 Michael H. Gould 'The workhouses of Ulster' (UAHS 1983)
3 Trevor McCavery 'Newtown, a history of Newtownards (Dundonald 1994), pp.118-20, 123-25, 128, 129, 131, 149, 163, 196.
4 Cahal Dallat 'Caring by design- The architectural heritage of the health & social services in Northern Ireland' (DHSS 1985), pp.22-29.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Curious and innovative gate lodge for the Newtownards workhouse of perhaps c.1870s in an ‘irregular picturesque’ style. In some respects this basalt built gabled lodge reflects the workhouse at whose entrance it stood, but its design is far more challenging. Over the years the lodge has been adapted for uses which do not sit well with the original design.