Main gateway of Manor House, At 33 and 35 Main Street, Loughgall, Co Armagh

Main Gateway of Manor House, 33 and 35 Main Street, Loughgall

This is a particularly ornate example of an early Victorian gatescreen in neo-Jacobean style, built in 1842 for Arthur Cope. The gates were manufactured by R. Marshall of Caledon, and the structure appears for the first time on the Ordnance Survey map of 1860. No architect's name has been recorded. The gatescreen combines with its associated pair of twin gate lodges to form the entrance to an important country house demesne, and the structures stand within the area of monument Armagh 8:9.

The gatescreen is oriented approximately north-west toward the main street and comprises a set of vehicular and pedestrian gates flanked by curving balustraded screen walls. The front elevation is symmetrically arranged around a central vehicular gateway, which consists of a pair of elaborately scrolled wrought iron carriage gates. These are flanked by pairs of tall rusticated cut-stone piers with moulded vermiculated bases. The piers are constructed of alternating courses of broad facetted blocks and vermiculated blocks, with central diamond-facetted stones, and are enriched with friezes bearing raised arabesque ornamentation, moulded cornices, and carved stone dragons emerging from floriated finials at their summits. Mounted between each pair of piers is a pedestrian gate of similar design to the carriage gates.

Flanking the outer piers are curving screen walls of stone featuring moulded semi-circular arched balustrading with panelled tapering balustrades carried on a plinth of lozenge-shaped rubble with moulded coping and basecourse. Across the top runs a large moulded stone rail with a broad tapering pier, positioned every six balusters, each carrying an ornamented stone basket. At each outer extremity of the screen walls stands a rusticated stone pier similar in design to the central pairs but without the floriated dragon finials. Where the ground slopes at the eastern extremity, a portion of rubble stone base is exposed.

The rear elevation is similar to the front, except that the semi-circular arches over the balustrades are unmoulded, the rear faces of the baluster shafts are plain, and the plinth wall of the screens is constructed of snecked rubble rather than lozenge-shaped rubble.

Originally an overthrow linked the two central piers, but it was accidentally toppled by a lorry in the 1960s and has not been reinstated.

The gatescreen stands facing the main street, curving back toward the central gateway with a tarmac area in front, leading to a tarmac driveway beyond the gates. Set close behind the screen wall is the pair of gate lodges, one to each side of the driveway. Areas behind the screens are laid with gravel, extending to grass in the case of the eastern screen. Attached to the easternmost pier and set slightly behind it is a pedestrian gateway containing a modern timber boarded gate set between plain rubble stone piers.

The estate, including the gatescreen, lodges, and Manor House, was bought by the Ministry of Agriculture in 1947.