Fisherwick Lodge, 5 & 7 Mill Road, Doagh, Ballyclare, Co Antrim, BT39 0PQ

Fisherwick Lodge is a substantial single-storey former hunting lodge of around 1805, set in a rural location on the northern edge of Doagh village in County Antrim. It was built by the 2nd Marquis of Donegall — the name deriving from his subsidiary title of Baron Fisherwick, taken from the place of that name in Staffordshire — and has since been divided into two private dwellings. Despite renovation and partial alteration, much of the original character and detailing survives both inside and out, though the replacement uPVC windows seriously detract from its appearance.

The house is arranged on a U-shaped plan, open to the south and facing onto a central courtyard, with outbuildings enclosing the court to the north. The roofs are pitched and slated with deep overhanging cavetto-moulded eaves and multiple rendered chimneys fitted with replacement pots. Gable ends have timber bargeboards. External walls are finished in ruled-and-lined render over a plinth. Windows throughout are square-headed uPVC casements imitating 6/9 sashes, with masonry cills and ogee-moulded painted timber architraves.

The principal south-facing elevation, which looks out over the courtyard exterior, is symmetrical and five bays wide, with projecting gabled central and outer bays. The outer bays each contain a single round-arched window with a spoked head. The central entrance is particularly elaborate: double-leaf doors with glazed panels above the lock-rail are flanked by fluted Corinthian colonnettes with an entablature, and surmounted by a semi-circular fanlight over which sits a triangular open-bed pediment. The whole ensemble is further flanked by sidelights and fluted pilasters. Three windows sit to either side of this entrance bay.

The west elevation is five bays wide. The leftmost bay has a modern square-headed entrance door at centre with window openings to either side fitted with mock 6/6 uPVC casements. The second bay is gabled and contains a single two-stage rebated opening with a round-arched window retaining an original timber head. The third bay contains three window openings. The fourth bay is also gabled and has a modern entrance door matching the first. The rightmost bay is blank. Rubble walling and a modern farm building abut the elevation to the left. The north elevation is formed by the outbuilding range. The east elevation is roughcast, with three square-headed uPVC casement windows to the left (the leftmost reduced in size), a central square-headed timber panelled door with glazed top panels, and a wing to the right that is currently used as a farm building and in poor repair, though it retains original door and window openings. The north range abuts at the right.

Within the courtyard, the north-facing elevation of the south block is abutted by a central gabled return and a single-storey flat-roofed extension to the right. The exposed section to the left is blank. The return has a small window and a square-headed timber sheeted entrance door with glazed top panels and a transom light, plus two square-headed replacement timber casement windows to the right. The flat-roofed extension to the right contains a replacement square-headed timber door to the left, a central bipartite sliding sash timber window, and a 3/6 sliding sash timber window to the right.

The east-facing elevation of the west block has three square-headed replacement timber 3/6 sliding sash windows with masonry cills to the left, and to the right an offset replacement square-headed entrance door with a segmental-headed fanlight and sidelights, flanked on both sides by replacement timber 3/6 sliding sash windows. The pitched roof above has multiple rooflights.

The west-facing elevation of the east block has two large square-headed double-leaf timber doors to the left, two original timber sheeted doors at centre, and a square-headed replacement uPVC 6/6 sliding sash window to the right.

The court is enclosed to the north by a two-storey, seven-bay outbuilding with a pitched slated roof and roughcast walls. Its windows are pointed-arched to the first floor and segmental-headed to the ground floor, with some square-headed openings; all are timber-framed with masonry cills. The north elevation of this range features a central elliptical-headed carriage arch with exposed timbers to its soffit and a timber door beneath to each wing. To the left is a central entrance with a fanlight, with windows to either side, each opening surmounted by a first-floor window. To the right are three windows to each floor with a square-headed entrance door with a rectangular fanlight to the left. The blank gable end of the left projection is also visible here. A modern farm shelter abuts at the right. The east elevation of the projecting wing has three pointed-arched openings to the first floor, the central one larger, and a large square-headed opening to the ground floor.

On the south elevation of this outbuilding range, to the left of the carriage arch there are three segmental-headed timber casement windows to the first floor and two windows plus a square-headed timber panelled door with glazed top panels to the ground floor. A single-storey lean-to extension containing an original square-headed window and door abuts to the right of this section. Three windows to each floor continue to the right, abutted by the eastern wing of the courtyard. Further to the north sits a three-bay rendered outbuilding with pitched roofs, comprising single-storey outer bays and a two-storey central bay.

Standing in the courtyard is a cast-iron pump marked "Rankin & Co, Ballymena."

The lodge is set within mature gardens to the south and west, with a modern farm to the north. The entrance drive to the north is bounded by hedging and accessed through modern timber gates. The boundary to Mill Road is formed by rubble stone walling with rubble coping at the entrance and dressed stone coping elsewhere. Modern steel entrance gates are supported on square rubble pillars with crenellations, set within an alcoved gateway.

Fisherwick Lodge has considerable historical significance. Although the present building dates from the early 19th century, its origins lie in an 18th-century hunting lodge belonging to the Donegall estate. The 2nd Marquis of Donegall, who had a reputation for extravagance, built it in the midst of an extensive deer park that covered nearly all of six townlands: Kilbride, Ballywee, Holestone, Douglasland, Ballyhamage, and parts of the parish of Donegore and the Grange of Doagh. He also laid out an artificial lake in front of the house. Deer were hunted by hounds in the Doagh district, and the Marquis's improvements included the establishment of a large kennel and extensive stabling. In 1899, the kennel was associated with the creation of a racecourse at Lisnalinchy; the hunt continued under the name East Antrim Hounds until the late 1950s, before being relocated to the Parkgate district.

The Ordnance Survey Memoir of 1838 dates the lodge to 1805 and describes it as "an elegant and uniform structure in the Cottage style, forming with the offices a spacious quadrangular enclosure. It contains a regular suite of handsome apartments, and is constructed and finished in the most modern style." An 1812 statistical survey by the Reverend John Dubourdieu noted: "Close to [Doagh] is Fisherwick Lodge.... the building itself, which is very handsome, and the plantations, have much improved and enlivened the look of this well placed hamlet." The building also receives references in Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of 1837 and the Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland of 1844.

It is recorded that the Donegalls took refuge at Fisherwick following the seizure of the contents of their Belfast residence by creditors. Between 1760 and 1848, the Earl of Belfast and his father the Marquis of Donegall disentailed their estates, with the exception of Islandmagee. The house was finally sold in 1847, passing subsequently through the ownership of Mr John Molyneaux J.P. (who in October 1893 gave two acres and thirty-two perches of land for the Rectory and Parish Hall), then Messrs John and Thomas Hagan, and thereafter the Paton and Law families.

In 1800, the twenty-two-year-old American Methodist evangelist Lorenzo Dow arrived in Doagh and preached to soldiers of the guard stationed there, possibly in outhouses at Fisherwick. A tribute to the 2nd Marquis appears in a poem entitled "The Antrim Hunt," written by William Peroy in 1826. In 1894, Mr John Molyneaux drained the artificial lake in front of the house; it is recorded that "the youths of Doagh had a great time gathering the many fish which floated down the Ballyclare Road, when the sluice gates were opened."

The gate lodge associated with the property was demolished around 2000 and replaced with a modern house. The overall layout of the complex, including the outbuildings, remains intact, adding considerably to its interest as an unusually early and well-preserved example of its building type, in which the original form and purpose remain clearly discernible.