Craigowen Lodge, 208 Bangor Road, Holywood, BT18 0JE

Craigowen Lodge is a refined single-storey Italianate gate lodge built in 1851 to designs by Thomas Turner. It occupies what was once the entrance to Craigavad House, now the Royal Belfast Golf Club, on the north side of Bangor Road in Craigavad.

The building is rectangular on plan with a central portico and is constructed of buff sandstone with a raised plinth and continuous string course at sill level, finished with quoins to the string course. The pitched corrugated metal roof features sandstone kneelers and overhanging eaves resting on timber brackets. A slender ashlar chimney with scroll moulding rises from the plinth, which is crowned with a cornice and two terracotta pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods with cast-iron brackets run around the building.

The principal elevation faces west and consists of three bays. All windows are blind, with round-headed, bead-moulded and banded surrounds with engaged colonette reveals featuring carved acanthus leaves at the capitals. The entrance door, now boarded, occupies a round-headed bead-moulded opening and is accessed by four stone steps with a fretted stone balustrade to north and south. The central projecting portico is flanked by window openings and comprises two semi-circular arches carried on a central column and two columns to either side, which are engaged to stone piers. The capitals are ornately carved with acanthus leaves and scallop shells. A spandrel with an ornamental bracket rests on a carved maiden's head, with two further timber brackets to north and south resting on sandstone ovolo-shaped supports.

The north elevation has paired window openings below a carved roundel depicting a scallop shell. Decorative carved timber brackets project under the eaves at the centre of the gable and at both corners, resting on sandstone supports. The south elevation mirrors the north. The rear elevation is concealed by overgrown planting.

The lodge was built as part of the mid-nineteenth-century rebuilding of Craigavad House by John Mulholland of the York Street Flax Spinning and Weaving Company around 1850. Thomas Turner, who designed the main house, also designed the gatehouses. Originally three gate lodges were built; two appear in Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64, each valued at £8. This lodge was referred to as 'Bangor Lodge', while the others were 'Central Lodge' and 'Belfast Lodge'. The building bears the scallop shell family crest of the Mulhollands. The lodge first appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, uncaptioned.

By 1933 the building was occupied by Arthur C Medlicott, later by William Robert Matthews, and the lodge became part of the 'Craigowen' estate occupied by Alfred A Agar. The lodger held the property rent-free during his term of employment with Agar. In the 1930s the building was supplied with water from a pump and lit by oil lamps, with electric light anticipated. It contained two bedrooms, one reception room, a kitchen and scullery, and was valued at £4, later raised to £7. A plan shows the house, porch and an outside water closet.

Most architectural detailing has survived, with the sculpted masonry and carved timber of superior quality and craftsmanship. The lodge represents a fine example of its type and of Thomas Turner's work. Although the gate screen and avenue have been lost, it retains a relationship with Craigavad House.

The setting lies to the north of the busy A2 carriageway. The surrounding land is much overgrown with trees and modern field gate to the north and trees and rubble stone wall to the east. The boundary to the road is marked by a modern smooth rendered wall with coping stones and piers with pointed caps, with an inverted entrance having piers with pointed caps and a modern metal gate containing vertical bars topped by pointed finials.