Castle Dillon Twin Gate Lodges, Drummanmore Road, Castle Dillon, Co Armagh

Castle Dillon Twin Gate Lodges, built in 1760, form a matched pair of square, box-type Palladian gate lodges standing on the north-west side of the Castle Dillon demesne, directly facing the intersection of the Drummanmore Road and the Ballybrannon Road outside Armagh. Now derelict and in private ownership, they represent a rare and possibly unique survival of this Palladian rusticated double box-type form in Ireland, and rank among the earliest gate lodges in Ulster. Good parallels exist in John Vardy's lodges at Harewood Park in Hampshire, also dating to the 1760s.

Both lodges are robustly modelled and virtually identical in form: one bay, one storey, with a roughly square plan measuring 5.72 metres by 5.88 metres (19 feet by 19 feet 6 inches). All four faces are lined with high-quality rock-faced rusticated limestone of a pink-brown colour, with deep V-joint channelling, surmounted all around by a strong cornice. The rusticated walls stand 3.60 metres high. The north and south sides are each crowned by a full-width pediment rising 5.50 metres to the apex, with moulded stone horizontal raking courses and a plain ashlar tympanum.

On both lodges, the north wall facing the road carries a blind doorway measuring 1.50 by 2.45 metres, fitted with large triple keystones: the central keystone has a smooth surface while the two flanking keystones are rock-faced to match the surrounding wall. The surface of the blind doorway recess is lined with cement. The south facade on each lodge closely mirrors the north, except that a window takes the place of the blind doorway.

On the East Lodge, this south window is subdivided by two mullions and two wooden transoms, creating three divisions each with six panes, set on a stone sill placed quite close to the ground. The demesne wall meets the rusticated east elevation, which is otherwise featureless. The actual entrance to the building is through the west wall, where an opening of similar size to the road-front blind doorway — again with triple keystones — contains ledged and batten double doors with three overlights, none of which now retain their glass panes. The roof was formerly slated but is now mostly ruined, and a single brick chimneystack rises from the centre of the east wall.

The West Lodge matches the East Lodge in all principal respects, but on the south facade the window has been replaced with a one-over-one sliding sash window. Photographic evidence confirms that the original window here was a mullioned and transomed window similar to that surviving in the East Lodge. The west elevation is featureless where the demesne wall meets it, and the entrance to the West Lodge is now reached through a small flat-roofed porch of around 1950, measuring approximately 2 by 2 metres and rising to the height of the link wall to the rear. This porch contains openings for a window and door and was built in front of the original entrance, which like the East Lodge had an opening of 1.50 metres by 2.45 metres with triple keystones above.

The two lodges are connected to the central gate pillars by a pair of cement-rendered screen walls with concrete coping, each 2.50 metres high and 4.50 metres long. The present gate pillars, standing 3.50 metres high, have rusticated limestone surfaces crowned with a cement cornice and blocking cap. These are a post-war rebuild of the original rusticated pillars, which photographic evidence shows were approximately 6.40 metres (21 feet) tall and 1.80 metres (6 feet) square, with thirteen rock-faced rusticated courses and a substantial cornice and blocking cap. The present wrought iron gates, with square-sectioned bars and simple decoration, are only the lower half of the original much taller gates.

The lodges were built in 1760 by Sir Capel Molyneux, 3rd Baronet, who had inherited Castle Dillon the previous year following the death of Elizabeth St Andre, wife of his uncle the Right Honourable Samuel Molyneux, the noted mathematician and astronomer. The Molyneux family had owned Castle Dillon since 1663 but had previously spent relatively little time there. Sir Capel Molyneux was resident at Castle Dillon for around six months of the year until his death in 1797, and during his ownership carried out many improvements: he rebuilt the house in the 1760s, added a stable range designed by Cooley in 1782, erected an obelisk on Cannon Hill in the same year, and laid out the present informal landscape park. As part of this process he created new entrance drives, three of which eventually received gate lodges. The northern lodges described here were the first, built in 1760. Around 1780 a lodge known as the Hockley Lodge was added to a design by Cooley, though this was subsequently demolished around 2000. A final lodge was built around 1850 on the south-west side of the demesne.

A description of the demesne published in the European Magazine in 1782 confirms that the northern lodges were built in 1760 and notes that they were expensive to construct, though the figure of £2,000 mentioned in that article is likely an error given the enormous sum this would have represented in the mid-18th century. In 1786, the Post Chaise Companion recorded that the park gates and offices were in the best style of architecture and elegance. It has sometimes been suggested that Sir William Chambers was responsible for the design of the lodges, but no evidence supports this. The rather ungainly proportions of the gate piers, at least as originally built, suggest the work of a local architect or contractor.

Castle Dillon house and demesne remained in Molyneux family ownership until 1926, when it was sold to McAnish and Company Limited, who removed most of the parkland timber. In 1929 Armagh County Council purchased the demesne and used the house as a mental institution, which was taken over by the Hospital Authority in 1948. The lodges remained in occupation during this period, and around 1950 a small porch was added to the western lodge entrance. The lodges had been abandoned by the time the army occupied the house and park in the 1970s, and both remain derelict.

The fine rusticated exterior walls and pediments of the lodges survive intact and continue to form an important local landmark on the Drummanmore Road. The loss of the original very tall rusticated gate piers, rebuilt in the post-1950 era, and the halving in size of the original wrought iron gates are the principal alterations that detract from the original composition.