Gate Lodge, 2 Clifton House, 2 North Queen Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT15 1EQ

Gate Lodge at 2 North Queen Street, Belfast

This detached, symmetrical single-storey gate lodge was built around 1938 to designs by architect Godfrey Ferguson. It stands on an elevated site at the entrance to Clifton House and serves as a decorative element framing the approach to the main building.

The building is constructed of machine-made redbrick laid in stretcher bond with a pyramidal natural slate roof fitted with slate ridges. A central brick chimneystack with clay pots rises from the roof. The eaves feature a modillioned cornice with moulded steel rainwater goods and roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles.

The front elevation is symmetrical, dominated by a central projecting porch with raking modillioned eaves forming an open-bed pediment over the entrance. The round-headed front door opening contains a replacement timber panelled and glazed door beneath a decorative webbed leaded fanlight. Flanking the porch are slender window openings with 4/4 timber sash windows. The main facade is fenestrated with gauged brick square-headed window openings featuring moulded architrave surrounds and sills, containing 6/6 timber sash windows with part exposed sash boxes. The west and east elevations are each two windows wide, while the rear elevation is three windows wide and includes a square-headed door opening with a timber panelled and glazed door.

The building sits on a mature elevated site along the north side of the front avenue to Clifton House, approached by a flight of concrete steps leading to a paved terrace fronted by redbrick walls and steel railings. The east elevation overlooks North Queen Street.

Historically, this gate lodge replaced an earlier porter's house that had occupied the site since the mid-19th century. Maps from 1791 onwards show a succession of gate lodge buildings at the entrance to what is now Clifton House, originally the Belfast Charitable Institution. The current lodge, completed in 1938 to Ferguson's Neo-Georgian designs, represents an interesting exercise in that style. Ferguson was also responsible for the dining hall and laundry building of Clifton House in 1887 and 1908 respectively. The lodge appears to have been unoccupied during the mid-20th century but was reoccupied by the mid-1950s, and late 20th-century repair work has enabled it to continue functioning as a residence.

Much original fabric and detailing survive, and the building forms part of an architecturally and historically important group with Clifton House.