Burn Lodge, Crawfordsburn Road, Bangor, Co Down, BT191HY

Burn Lodge is a detached gate lodge built in 1812 to designs by John Nash, one of very few examples of his work in Ireland. It is situated at the entrance to Crawfordsburn House, east of Crawfordsburn village on Crawfordsburn Road, and forms part of the original Crawfordsburn House Estate, giving it group value. The lodge was later extended around 1910 to designs by Vincent Craig.

The building is a two-storey, single-bay structure on a square plan, constructed in Neo-Classical style. It features a hipped natural slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and pinnacles, painted roughcast render walls with a smooth render plinth, and a painted masonry chimneystack with clay pots. The ogee cast-iron rainwater goods include hoppers set on moulded sandstone eaves.

The principal elevation faces west and is notable for its sophisticated architectural detailing. The main body is surmounted by an octagonal first floor with an octahedral roof. The upper floor is fitted with Tuscan colonnettes set into recesses at each corner, each with a squared abacus topped by an entablature. The projecting single-storey porch is pedimented with a double-leaf eight-panelled timber door and a spoked fanlight in a moulded surround. To the left is a canted bay containing three window openings. Windows throughout are round-arched timber 1/1 sliding sashes with horns, set within moulded painted ashlar surrounds and painted masonry sills.

The north elevation contains a semi-circular-headed niche to the left of the porch with a moulded surround and stringcourse at spring level. The gable end to the left features a pediment with a central moulded scroll motif over paired windows. A simple timber gate provides access to the rear yard. The rear elevation mirrors the principal elevation. The south elevation presents a symmetrical design with wings to either side, featuring a central breakfront at ground floor with a square-headed window with moulded surround, and an oeil-de-boeuf window on the first floor, also with a moulded surround.

The substantial extension added around 1910 extends to the north, containing a glass and panelled modern timber door on its south wall, with the east wall remaining blank. The property retains a walled rear yard, currently used as a smallholding, separated from neighbouring property by hedgerow. The principal elevation fronts onto Old Windmill Road behind cast-iron railings with a gate, separated from the main road to the south by a roughcast rendered wall with coping stones.

According to architectural historian J.A.K. Dean, Nash met William Sharman Crawford while working on the Earl of Caledon's mansion in County Tyrone. A notebook held in the Royal Pavilion Art Gallery and Museum in Brighton, belonging to George Stanley Repton (son of landscape architect Humphrey Repton and partner of John Nash), contains drawings for classical park entrance lodges. One of these drawings has been identified as Burn Lodge. The building first appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834, captioned as "Gate Lodge".

The Townland Valuation of 1828-40 lists three porters' lodges on the plot, with the current building measuring 18 by 17.6 by 12 feet and valued at £2.4.7s, owned at that time by William Sharman Crawford Esq. By 1894-1903 it was owned by R.G.S. Crawford and valued at £4.10s, subsequently occupied by William McWha. The fourth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1919-31 shows the lodge had been extended by an additional wing, likely designed by Vincent Craig, who designed the replacement Crawfordsburn House in 1906. By 1938 the lodge was recorded as the gardener's house, with Samuel Brown as occupier. A 1935 valuation describes it as a "modern type detached gate lodge in good condition, quite well-built", with acetylene gas from the farmyard and water pumped to a tank in the roof, but no sewerage. The first floor was noted as rather low. At that time the accommodation comprised a reception, kitchen and pantry on the ground floor and two bedrooms on the first floor. The property is now used as a house.