Gate Screen, Cabinhill School, Belfast

A High Victorian gate screen dated to the mid-19th century, formerly the entrance to Cabin Hill School and fronting onto Upper Newtownards Road in Belfast. The gateway consists of two ashlar Scrabo sandstone square-section gate piers and two identical boundary piers, each having a recessed panel to the front face, moulded plinth, and stepped pyramidal cap with ball finial (now missing from the gate piers). The words 'Cabin' and 'Hill' are engraved to the front of the gate piers. The wrought iron gates are now removed and undergoing restoration. Curved plan dwarf walls of coursed rock-faced Scrabo sandstone with projecting plinth and chamfered coping are topped by wrought iron rectangular-section railings with arrowhead tops and rectangular-plan ashlar Scrabo sandstone standards with stepped coping stones. The railings display elaborate ornamentation and the gate piers are well proportioned.

Both original boundary piers were rebuilt and repositioned slightly to the north of their original location around 2008, which altered the radius of the curved dwarf walls. Despite this loss of original fabric, the screen retains interest as the original entrance to the 19th-century Tudor Revival gentleman's villa that formerly occupied the site, now Cabin Hill Preparatory School.

Cabin Hill itself was erected in 1786–87 as a single-storey thatched dwelling. Between 1833 and 1858 it underwent extensive alteration resulting in the current two-storey Tudor Revival building. The original entrance to Cabin Hill was located to the east of the current gate screen in the 1830s; a new entrance was opened on the site of the current gate screen by 1858. It is likely but not certain that the entrance screen was installed by 1858, though it was certainly in place by 1901–02 when the third edition Ordnance Survey map recorded the western entrance as the main entrance. In 1903 the property was acquired by R.J. McMordie, a future Lord Mayor of Belfast, who carried out further alterations including an eastern extension and entrance conservatory. The property was later acquired by Campbell College and converted into a Preparatory School; a gate lodge was constructed around 1935 but demolished by 1987 to make way for Cabin Hill Court.

The main entrance fell out of use following the closure of the school in 2004. The ashlar stone gate pillars underwent restoration around 2008 when the original gates were removed. Around 2011, Lacefield, a residential development to the north, was constructed with its main entrance immediately to the east. A replica gate screen based on the original ashlar piers was constructed in 2012. In July or August 2012 a traffic accident destroyed one of the original outer pillars, which was subsequently replaced during further renovation work.

The gate screen has group value with the listed Cabin Hill School building.