Former gate lodge, 702 Antrim Road, Belfast, Co.Antrim, BT15 5GQ

Former gate lodge to the Belfast Castle estate, 702 Antrim Road, Belfast, built around 1885 in the Italianate style. The architect is not known with certainty, though it has been suggested — without confirmation — that the building may have been designed by Robert Young (of Young & Mackenzie) or by Charles West. The building is currently in use as a private dwelling and sits within the townland of Green Castle.

Historical Background

This is the second gate lodge to have stood on this site. The first was built around 1840 as the entrance lodge to Martlett Towers, a house constructed at that time for Joseph Magill, a local linen manufacturer. Magill had married into the Nash family and received the plot of land on the slopes of Cave Hill from his father-in-law, Andrew Nash, who lived on land immediately to the south. The first edition Ordnance Survey map records that the townland of Green Castle was predominantly rural by the 1830s, with only Nash's dwelling in existence at that time. By the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1857, Martlett Towers appeared as a rectangular dwelling with an L-shaped gate lodge at the Antrim Road entrance. Griffith's Valuation of 1859 placed the combined value of the house, outbuildings and first gate lodge at £130.

In 1868, according to the Irish Builder, Martlett Towers was rebuilt or enlarged to designs by Sherry & Hughes, a short-lived local architectural partnership formed around 1868 between Charles Acton Sherry — formerly chief assistant to W. J. Barre — and Robert Hughes. This was among the firm's earliest contracts, completed before Sherry's untimely death in 1871. The work increased the assessed value of Martlett Towers and its outbuildings to £155. Joseph Magill continued to reside at Martlett Towers until he was made bankrupt around 1875, after which the property and its land were absorbed into the Belfast Castle estate. Belfast Castle itself had been constructed between 1868 and 1870.

In the 1880s the Earl of Shaftesbury converted Martlett Towers into accommodation for his estate workers and had the present Italianate gate lodge built as the new northern entrance to the estate. Annual Revisions confirm the new gate lodge was constructed around 1885. The original lodge to Martlett Towers was demolished shortly afterwards and does not appear on the Ordnance Survey map of 1901–02. The new gate lodge was valued at £5 and was depicted as an L-shaped building on the 1901–02 Ordnance Survey map.

The gate lodge served as the main northern entrance to the Belfast Castle estate until around 1892, when Nos 694–696 Antrim Road became the new entrance. During the 1890s the Earl of Shaftesbury leased No. 702 to Thomas McWhirter, an agricultural labourer employed on the estate. The 1901 census building return described the lodge as a second-class dwelling of three rooms. The Shaftesbury family remained at Belfast Castle until 1934, when the 9th Earl granted the castle and its 200-acre estate to Belfast Corporation. The Corporation took possession on 1 February 1935 and the castle was officially opened to the public by the Lord Mayor on 9 July 1937, becoming one of Belfast's most prominent public venues, used for wedding receptions, public dances and afternoon teas. The Corporation also acquired No. 702 Antrim Road, which it continued to lease to tenants employed on the estate. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), a chauffeur named William Kirkwood occupied the lodge, by which time it had been revalued at £10. Kirkwood remained in residence at least until the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), when the building's value stood at £10 and 10 shillings.

Architecture

The building is a detached, three-bay, single-storey, asymmetric Italianate-style gate lodge on an L-shaped plan, with a series of single-storey extensions added to the south-west in recent decades, which have considerably increased the building's size. The architectural historian J. A. K. Dean described it as a restrained Italianate design with a low-pitched roof and gables supported on carved purlin ends, walls in coursed squared quarry-faced basalt with smooth sandstone dressings to narrow semi-circular-headed openings, a Venetian window to the parlour, and a fine raised and fielded door.

The roof is hipped and pitched, covered in natural slate with terracotta roll-top ridge tiles, exposed scrolled rafter ends, and overhanging eaves with a painted soffit. Half-round cast-iron gutters discharge to circular downpipes. Two three-stage lined and ruled rendered chimney stacks are finished with cornice copings. Rooflights are also present.

Throughout the building, window openings are generally semi-circular headed with raised smooth sandstone dressings and integral sills, fitted with one-over-one timber sliding sash windows unless otherwise noted.

The front elevation faces north-east and is three bays wide, with a projecting gable to the east and a central entrance door. The walling is rock-faced coursed basalt with dressed margins and a smooth sandstone plinth course. The projecting gable contains a Venetian window fitted with replacement timber sliding sash windows. The entrance door is a raised and fielded six-panelled timber door set within a semi-circular opening with a cut-stone moulded surround.

The south-east elevation has three projecting gables: rock-faced coursed basalt walling to the east, smooth lined and ruled rendered walling to the central bay, and a timber-framed glazed wall set within smooth rendered walling to the west. The south-west elevation is four bays wide with smooth rendered walling, square-headed openings with a smooth rendered plaster band, and one-over-one timber sliding sash windows. The north-west elevation is also four bays, with square-headed openings, smooth sandstone dressings, and one-over-one timber sliding sash windows.

Setting

The building is set back from the Antrim Road, adjacent to a private access road leading to Belfast Castle and Cavehill Country Park. The site is enclosed by a stone and rendered boundary wall to the south and east, with an outbuilding to the north-west. The outbuilding has a pitched and hipped slate roof with sawtooth terracotta ridge tiles, smooth cement-rendered walls, and square-headed double timber sheeted doors. To the north-east and north-west there are mature hedge and tree boundaries, with lawns to the south.

The approach from the north-east is via stone steps leading to the entrance door, with a rendered retaining wall forming a garden to the east and a gravel pathway leading to the south. Square-plan gate piers with cement copings are set within a stepped rendered boundary to the north-east, forming gateways to the outbuilding and the entrance door, and fitted with decorative metal gates. To the south, a rock-faced coursed basalt boundary wall on a curved plan has three-stage rendered piers with flat copings.