The Gate Lodge, Culloden Hotel, 142 Bangor Road, Holywood, BT18 0EX

The Gate Lodge at Culloden Hotel is a one-and-a-half-storey single-bay gate lodge built around 1870 to designs by the architectural firm Young & Mackenzie. It stands at the entrance to Culloden Hotel on Bangor Road in Holywood.

The building is rectangular on plan with an additional lower entrance bay to the left, abutted by a single-storey porch at the re-entrant angle. A slightly lower return extends to the east, with a sympathetic extension and conservatory abutting the rear.

The lodge is constructed of rock-faced sandstone on a squared and uncoursed projecting plinth, with feather-edged quoins. The pitched natural slate roof features terracotta ridge tiles and raised stone skews terminated by fleur de lys finials. Paired ashlar sandstone polygonal chimney stacks with tapered caps rise at the right gable on a rock-face stone plinth. Ogee cast-iron rainwater goods sit on bead-moulded sandstone eaves.

The principal elevation faces west. The main body has a canted bay window to the ground floor and a wall head dormer to the attic with a shoulder-headed window opening. The porch contains a pointed-arch headed entrance opening with chamfered ashlar surround and a herringbone sheeted timber door with brass central knob; a window sits to the left. The left gable has a single window to the attic. The right gable has a central projecting chimney breast with small windows lighting each floor. Windows throughout are replacement timber casements in blocked sandstone ashlar reveals with chamfered cills.

Historically, two gate lodges were originally commissioned with drawings dated 1875. The "Bangor Lodge" was demolished during a road realignment scheme; the surviving building became known as the "Belfast Lodge". According to architectural historian Dean, the architect was familiar with Edward Blore's lodge at Ballydrain, County Antrim, which this lodge markedly resembles. The gate lodge first appears in valuation records in 1877 as part of the Culloden House estate. By 1933, it comprised two bedrooms, one reception room, and a kitchen, with spring water and gas lighting supplied.

The lodge has been much altered and modernised, with significant loss to architectural detailing. However, it retains considerable architectural presence and forms an important group with Culloden Hotel, representing the work of the important local firm Young & Mackenzie.

Directly to the west stand the former entrance gates, featuring polygonal ashlar sandstone piers with foliate carving and pointed caps, though the central pier has been removed. Curved boundary entrance walls of rock-faced stone are surmounted by cast-iron railings with large polished granite entrance signs to the hotel. Hedge boundaries define the other elevations.

The lodge is currently in use as offices.