Lodge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached two-storey brick and stone former gate lodge, built c.1855 with pair of octagonal stone piers. Square on plan facing west and forming the principal entrance to Weaver's Court Business Park at the southern end of Linfield Road.

Hipped natural slate roof with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles, redbrick chimneystack with terracotta pot and replacement moulded iron rainwater goods to redbrick eaves course. The southeast section has a flat felt-lined roof. Redbrick walling laid in Flemish bond with lime pointing to the first floor and rubble basalt to the ground floor on the north and east elevations only, painted ruled and lined rendered walling to remainder, with continuous masonry string course betwen floors. Rubbered redbrick round-headed windows openings set within round-headed panels with replacement timber casement windows and painted masonry sills.

West front elevation is four windows wide with two round-headed blind panels to each floor and a round-headed door opening to the north end having replacement timber panelled door.

Symmetrical north side elevation is three windows wide with a single camber-headed window opening to the ground floor and a blocked up square-headed former door opening formed in basalt ashlar with voussoired flat-arch.

East elevation has its original redbrick walling to the first floor of the earlier section with later redbrick to the southern extension, while the ground floor retains its coursed rubble basalt walling, rendered to the extension.

South side elevation exposes the gabled side elevation adjacent to the flat-roofed twentieth-century extension, all having plain painted rendered walling.

Setting:
Square on plan facing west and forming the principal entrance to Weaver's Court Business Park at the southern end of Linfield Road. To the west is a pair of tall basalt ashlar piers on a octagonal plan with matching tooled capstones supporting modern steel gates.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Replacement metal
Walling Redbrick/ Basalt / Ruled and lined render
Windows Replacement timber casement

Historical information

The lodge was built c1855 as a gatehouse to the former Linfield spinning mill, which no longer survives, and as such is an important physical reminder of the industrial heritage of the area and of a concern that was for many years a major employer. (Map evidence) The building is first shown on the third edition OS map of 1858.

The area in which the lodge is situated, to the west of Sandy Row, lay well outside the urban area of Belfast until the 1850s. Linfield Mill opened in 1833 (but is not shown on the first edition OS map of 1832-3) and marks a change in industrial focus in the area which had previously relied on brickmaking. Tea Lane, now Rowland Way, provided the only access to the factory for some years and the gate lodge was built at the main entrance to the factory at the western end of this road. The lodge is not shown on an 1850 map of the area, and can therefore be dated to between 1850 and 1858 when it first appears on the third edition OS map. (Brett)

The building is listed in Griffith’s Valuation (1860) as part of the Linfield Flax Spinning Mill and Weaving Factory complex which comprised a gatehouse, offices, yards and a mill pond. The proprietors are William Murphy, Conway B Grimshaw, Isaac J Murphy and Joseph John Murphy. Dimensions are given for the gatehouse but it is not separately valued and no occupant is listed. The total valuation for the site is £1150. The lodge is not identifiable in census returns of 1901 or 1911. Street Directories list occupants of the lodge from 1911 and the occupant was Mrs Kennedy from 1911 to 1913 and the McVeigh family until 1929.

Dean points out that the windows now lack their original Georgian style glazing pattern and that the leading elevation has had its ground floor faced in quarry-faced stone. (Dean)

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/1 – First Edition OS Map 1832-3
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1901-2
4. PRONI VAL/2/B/7/4/G – Griffith’s Valuation (1860)
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/D/1-22 – Annual Revisions (1862-1930)
6. Brett, C.E.B., Gillespie, R. and Maguire W.A. “Georgian Belfast, 1750-1850, Maps Buildings and Trades” Dublin and Belfast: Royal Irish Academy and Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society, 2004
7. Street Directories (1910-1929)

Secondary Sources

1. Dean, J. A. K. “The Gate Lodges of Ulster: A Gazetteer.” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1994.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Detached two-storey brick and stone former gate lodge, built c.1855 with pair of octagonal stone piers. Square on plan facing west and forming the principal entrance to Weaver's Court Business Park at the southern end of Linfield Road. This former gate lodge is not of sufficient architectural interest to warrant listing.