Gate Lodges, Brookfield House, 65 A&B Scarva Road, Banbridge, County Down, BT32 3QD

Gate Lodges at Brookfield House

A pair of single-storey two-bay early nineteenth-century gate lodges standing vacant at the southern entrance to Brookfield House on the north side of Scarva Road west of Banbridge. They are of particular importance as a rare example of twin gate lodges in Northern Ireland and hold significant group value with Brookfield House, the gate screen, and the associated factory.

The lodges face each other across a tree-lined avenue leading to the main house. They are rectangular in plan with projecting windbreak porches to the front. Each has a hipped natural slate roof with vestigial leaded hips and ridges and a central rendered chimney stack (that of the west lodge is roughcast). Plastic rainwater goods serve both buildings.

The west lodge displays remains of roughcast-rendered walling with a smooth rendered plinth and stone quoins. The principal elevation has a projecting porch positioned to the right of centre with concrete block infill, flanked by two windows. The east lodge shows mostly exposed red brick. Its principal elevation has a projecting porch to the left of centre with red-brick infill, also flanked by two windows. All windows in both lodges have concrete block infill with projecting granite sills. The south elevation of the east lodge contains a centrally placed window. The north and east elevations of both buildings are largely concealed by overgrowth, as is much of the west lodge's southern elevation.

The setting is defined by the tree-lined avenue between the inner and outer gate screens. The outer gate screen retains original cast-iron railings mounted on a granite plinth with simple rendered square piers capped with pointed finials.

Historical Development

The twin lodges appear uncaptioned on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833 and are thought to date from around 1830, described contemporaneously as a "modest pair of lodges...with hardly a vestige of architectural pretension". They mark the entrance to Brookfield House and, following the construction of Brookfield weaving mill in 1884, the avenue also served as the entrance to this factory, which remained operational until 1980.

Because the lodges were situated in a different townland from the main house, they appear in valuation records as separate properties. Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 records them as the property of William Smyth, valued at £2 10 shillings, with the valuer noting that the apartments were "very small". At the First General Revaluation of 1933–34, the west lodge comprised a kitchen and bedroom supplied with electric light and had an earth closet in the garden; the east lodge similarly contained a kitchen and bedroom but commanded a slightly higher valuation due to a good lean-to store at the rear. The lodges were occupied into the 1980s by a succession of residents including the Ewarts, Andersons, Giffins, Cummins and Smyths.

The buildings were listed in 1976 and underwent extension and repairs at that time. Following their vacation in the 1980s, they deteriorated significantly and have been subject to vandalism.