West gate lodge, Carrowdore Castle, Abbey Road, Ballyrawer, Carrowdore, Newtownards, Co Down, BT22 2JH

The site represents the location of a former barbican gate lodge, built around 1818 concurrently with Carrowdore Castle, and demolished in 1992. The gate lodge was constructed by Nicholas Delacherois Crommelin. Described in the 1994 publication The Gate Lodges of Ulster - A Gazetteer, it was a “delightful folly entrance,” symmetrical in style with materials mirroring those of the lower lodge: random rubble basalt with red brick dressings around the openings. The design included a central carriage archway with double segmental heads, supporting a room above with crow-stepped gables on both the front and rear. Slender square towers rose two storeys, decorated with arrowloops. A watchroom, featuring Georgian sash windows on both the front and back, was accessible only via ladder from one of the ground floor rooms, which were lean-to structures with their own crow-stepped gables and small square corner turrets. A modern gate screen now stands a short distance to the west. Historical records from the 1830s onward document the lodge’s existence, and a photograph from around 1920 is held in the W.A. Green Collection.