The Gate Lodge, 70 Main Street, Conlig, Newtownards, Co Down, BT23 7PT

The Gate Lodge, Conlig

This is a symmetrical single-storey two-bay gate lodge with a rear extension, built around 1855 at the former entrance to Little Clandeboye, a neo-Tudor mansion on the south side of Conlig village that has since been demolished. The lodge is robustly detailed in a style that echoed the main house it once served. It was renovated in the late 20th century, though its scale, proportions and principal detailing have survived. It is now the only remaining structure of the Little Clandeboye demesne and is listed together with its gate screen.

Architectural Description

The lodge is rectangular on plan with a gabled central bay and a rear extension. The roof is finished in natural slate with angled clay ridge tiles and a central chimneystack rendered in mock-rustic finish. Profiled plastic gutters are fixed to overhanging boxed eaves, and ogee timber bargeboards run along the gables. The walls are generally built of squared-and-snecked whinstone rubble, with random rubble built to rough courses on the west side, and painted rusticated dressed sandstone quoins and a chamfered plinth. The windows are Gothic double-hung timber casements with fixed top-lights, set in painted chamfered sandstone surrounds with cills and hood mouldings with decorative stops. The door is timber, sheeted, ledged and braced, with brass ironmongery, and is set in a surround of the same character as the windows.

The principal elevation faces south and is symmetrically arranged, with a window to either side of a projecting gabled entrance bay. The west gable is blank, with the right side built up with large sandstone blocks to approximately window-head level. The rear elevation is completely abutted by a single-storey extension one bay deep, which is of no architectural interest. The east gable has a single window. Rainwater goods are uPVC.

Setting

The lodge sits with its east gable facing the road and is contained within a small, neat garden. A gravel parking area to the front is accessed through an alcoved entrance screen of squared-and-snecked whinstone rubble with sandstone coping. The screen has double timber gates hung on square piers with replacement ball finials and sandstone caps. Although the original gates have been replaced, the alcoved gate screen itself survives.

Historical Background

The lodge was built around 1855 as part of the Little Clandeboye estate, also known at times as Conlig House. The main house, Little Clandeboye, can be dated to around 1830 and was very similar in style to Glencraig, which dates from the same period. The architect of the lodge is unknown, though it may have been designed at the time Lord Dufferin bought the property. Lord Dufferin was commissioning the architect Benjamin Ferrey for various projects on his estate during the mid-1850s. The architect of the main house may have been William Burn, who was later consulted by the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava regarding the remodelling of Clandeboye House in the 1840s. The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858 identifies the building as the Gate Lodge, and Griffith's Valuation lists it as part of the Little Clandeboye estate owned by Lord Dufferin, with a valuation of £35, later raised to £40.

Prior to Lord Dufferin's ownership, the house was occupied by Captain William Pirrie, a Belfast ship-owner and harbour commissioner, who is listed in Thom's Directory of Ireland for 1850 as residing at Conlig House. The Townland Valuation records the premises as those of William Perry [sic], valued at £24 10s, and describes a house with north and south wings, a projection and seven cellars; it was given an A+ rating indicating it was less than 20 years old in 1835. Captain Pirrie sold the property to Lord Dufferin in November 1853, though he continued in business and in 1857 was listed as a Director of the Belfast and County Down Railway. He died in 1858.

Captain William Pirrie was a Scot who briefly emigrated to the United States, where he became a naturalised citizen. He used the neutral American flag to trade between Spain and the Spanish colonies during the Franco-Spanish war, was imprisoned for twelve months by the Spanish for possession of contraband, but eventually escaped and established himself as a merchant and ship-owner in Belfast. He was elected a Harbour Commissioner and played a leading role in developing Belfast as a major port. He was also granted a mining lease to the Conlig lead mines in 1850. His wife, Eliza Morrison, came from Conlig and was part of the wider family of the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava.

Captain Pirrie's son, James Alexander Pirrie, left Ireland in 1844 for Canada, where he entered the timber shipping trade. James Pirrie died in 1849, and his widow brought their son William back to Ireland to live at Conlig with his grandfather. Young William Pirrie was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution from 1858 to 1862, after which he became an apprentice at Harland and Wolff. He demonstrated a talent for draughtsmanship, design and financial management, became a partner in 1874, and following Harland's death in 1895, became chairman. In 1906 he was elevated to the peerage. In 1912 the firm produced the giant liner Titanic, which sank on her maiden voyage. Pirrie died in 1924, aged 77, having presided over the growth of one of the most successful shipping firms in the world.

Following Lord Dufferin's acquisition of the estate, Little Clandeboye was let to a succession of tenants. Estate correspondence records that the house was let to Hugh Creighton, who was about to be married, from 1863 until at least 1871, at a rent of £100 a year. By 1882 Richard T Hamilton was in residence. James Fagan occupied the house from 1894 and JT Barrett from 1901, at which point the valuation was increased to £59 15s, the valuer noting this was due to "Mr Barrett's improvements." Further occupiers included SJ McLean (1904), Thomas O Dickson (1909), Walter Barbour (1915), the Marquess of Dufferin (1926), George McCracken (1927) and Walter John Dyer (1929).

James Bernard Fagan (1873–1933), who occupied the house from 1894, was an actor, theatre manager and playwright. He had recently made his acting debut when he lived at Little Clandeboye. A letter written by him from the house to Lord Dufferin survives, in which he thanks Lord Dufferin for an introduction and promises to send two one-act plays he has written. After several years as an actor, Fagan became a dramatist, with a number of his plays being filmed in the early days of cinema. In 1917 he began a career as a theatre producer, eventually taking over management of the Royal Court Theatre in London. In 1923 he opened the Oxford Playhouse and continued to stage notable productions in London and New York. He spent increasing amounts of time in Hollywood, where several of his plays were filmed, and where he died in 1933.

Little Clandeboye itself became a mental hospital in the 1930s before eventually falling into disuse. It remained a romantic ruin for many years before being demolished, leaving the Gate Lodge as the sole surviving structure of the demesne.