Gate Lodge, 2 Fortwilliam Park, Antrim Road, Belfast, Co.Antrim, BT15 4AL

Gate Lodge, 2 Fortwilliam Park, Antrim Road, Belfast

This is a single-storey, three-bay Gothic Revival gate lodge built in 1864 to designs by the architect W. J. Barre. It stands at the junction of Fortwilliam Park and the Antrim Road within the Somerton Road Conservation Area, in the townland of Skegoneill. The lodge has group value with the ornate sandstone Gothic Revival gate screen immediately to the south, also designed by Barre, together forming what survives of the principal Antrim Road entrance to the former Fortwilliam Estate.

Architectural Overview

The original structure is L-shaped in plan, facing southeast toward Fortwilliam Park. Walls are built of uncoursed squared quarry-faced sandstone, with smooth-faced stop-chamfered dressings to the quoins, window surrounds, and door surrounds. The gabled natural slate roof has black roll-top ridge tiles, bargeboards decorated with a simple paired nailhead design, and a timber-boarded soffit to the eaves. Heavy projecting eaves are supported by timber corbels arranged in threes, with replacement ogee aluminium guttering above discharging to uPVC circular-section downpipes. There are two hexagonal-section red sandstone chimneys: one at the centre of the roof ridge on the southwest section of the L-plan, and a second to the northeast of the original building, which is now abutted by the pitched roof of the approximately 1995 extension.

The main entrance porch sits at the re-entrant corner of the L-plan and rises to a square tower with a pierced stone parapet coping supporting timber open latticework. The tower has a natural slate roof with leaded ridges and a decorative ironwork finial. Windows throughout the original building are generally two-over-two panes in double-hung timber sashes divided by a horizontal glazing bar, set within stop-chamfered sandstone surrounds and protected by iron latticework grilles.

Elevations

South elevation: The south-facing principal front has a single bay to the east, an advanced gabled bay to the west, and the projecting square tower at their junction. The central tower has paired lancet windows; the gable has similar but larger paired lancet windows. The east bay has a paired square-headed window. All windows are sliding sashes without horns and retain their protective lattice ironwork grilles.

East elevation: A three-bay elevation consisting of a central gable with an attached flat-roofed bay to the north and the tower to the south, set back from the main front. A pointed-arch opening within the square entrance porch at the base of the tower frames a timber diagonal match-boarded door retaining its original ironmongery, including a stylised Victorian eagle knocker. The projecting gabled central section has tripartite pointed-arch windows with double-hung sashes of two-over-two horizontal panes and one section of bull's-eye glass. A simple ashlar stone circular vent is centred above the tripartite window. The flat-roofed extension to the right has a square-headed door opening with a timber chevron-boarded door.

West elevation: The original building presents three bays, with paired windows to the south and a single square-headed window to the north, and a chimney at the centre of the roof apex. The three bays of the original building are divided from the approximately 1995 extension by a three-part timber-framed infill panel with a diagonally sheeted apron panel and a glazed upper section protected by a lattice ironwork grille. The extension projects at an angle to the northwest and has three bays of square-headed double-hung sash windows with one-over-one panes and ogee horns, all with protective ironwork. The northwest gable of the extension has no openings.

North elevation: The north elevation is obscured by the site boundary. Internal evidence indicates there are no openings along the north face of the 1995 extension.

Extension

An extension of similar size to the original lodge was built around 1995 to the north and northwest, set on a different axis to the original structure. It is built in a complementary style, roughly doubling the size of the building while preserving clarity of the original structure's layout and design. Its windows are double-hung sliding sashes with one-over-one panes and ogee horns, without the horizontal glazing bars of the original.

Setting

The gate lodge sits to the northeast of the junction of the Antrim Road and Fortwilliam Park. The principal entrance is approached from the south via a small replacement steel pedestrian gate and a short flight of four granite steps, with a path leading to the east side of the square tower where the main doorway is located. The site is bounded to the south by established hedging and a timber picket fence, with a single dressed sandstone pillar at the southwest corner. To the west there is random-coursed rock-faced basalt stone walling and an area of shrubs, both of which add architectural character. To the southeast, square-section rock-faced stone pillars topped by reconstituted stone swept pyramidal copings with ball finials flank replacement iron gates to a paved yard. The site is bounded to the north by a high wall with a rendered finish. Four large Gothic Revival sandstone gate pillars remain directly to the south.

Historical Background

Fortwilliam House was built before 1832 and was one of many gentlemen's mansions constructed along the Antrim and Shore Roads. Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) records that it was built near and named after an encampment known as Fort William, believed to have been erected by King William III in 1690. Lewis describes the encampment as measuring 70 feet square, surrounded by a deep fosse and defended by a bastion at each angle, with a further entrenchment of rougher construction nearby. The estate was owned by the Lendrick family until 1810, when George Langtry, a local ship owner, acquired it.

By the mid-19th century Fortwilliam House had grown into one of the most extensive gentlemen's manors along the Shore Road. Griffith's Valuation of 1859 recorded that the estate, by then owned by Elizabeth Langtry, comprised the house, three gate lodges, and numerous outbuildings across approximately 155 acres. Two earlier lodges, constructed before 1832, stood on the Shore Road and have since been demolished; a third on the Antrim Road, built around 1850, has also been demolished.

The estate passed to William Valentine, a Director of the Northern Banking Company and the Belfast and Ballymena Railway, in 1859. Around 1864, Valentine began to break up the estate, laying out a new street — Fortwilliam Park — running between the Antrim and Shore Roads. Over the following decades a number of substantial merchants' houses were built along this new suburban street, quickly establishing it as one of Belfast's most affluent residential areas. Two gateways were constructed in 1864 at the Antrim and Shore Road entrances to Fortwilliam Park, each with a gate lodge. The architect of the Shore Road gateway and lodge is not known with certainty, but the ornate Gothic Revival gate piers and lodge on the Antrim Road were designed by W. J. Barre.

William Joseph Barre (c.1826–1867) was born in Newry and became one of Belfast's most prolific architects. He moved to Belfast after winning the competition to design the Ulster Hall in 1859 and went on to design Belmont Presbyterian Church (1860–61), The Moat (1863–64), University Road Methodist Church (1864–65), the Provincial Bank on Royal Avenue (1864–69), Bryson House on Bedford Street (1865–67), and the Albert Memorial Clock Tower (1865–69). His Gothic Revival design for the Antrim Road gate piers is typical of his style and resembles the ornate detailing of the Albert Clock. Barre died in 1867 of an illness, having made a brief but lasting mark on the architectural landscape of Belfast.

The architectural historian Dean described the lodge as a "charming and innovative entrance lodge. On an L-plan in uncoursed squared quarry-faced sandstone with smooth dressings to coupled and tripartite openings in a mixture of lancet and square heads. Gabled, its eaves are given support by curved wooden brackets arranged in threes. The composition dominated by a nice square belfry rising from the entrance hall, a perforated plinth separated from the slated spire by an open wooden lattice stage. The octagonal stone chimney rather apologetic in scale."

The gate lodges on both roads were occupied by the park's porters. The first recorded occupant of the Antrim Road lodge was a Mr J. Robinson. The Annual Revisions of 1886 valued the lodge at £8 and noted a Mr John Mallon as occupant. By 1901 the lodge was inhabited by William Sloan, described in the census building return as a gardener as well as park porter; at that date the lodge was classified as a second-class dwelling consisting of three rooms. Occupancy continued to change frequently over the following three decades.

In the 1930s Fortwilliam House itself was demolished when the remainder of the estate was developed for housing. The First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) records that the Antrim Road porter's lodge was used by the Belfast Civil Defence Authority as an Air Raid Warden Station during the Second World War. After the war it was not returned to its original use but was purchased by the Territorial and Auxiliary Forces Association and continued to be used by the Territorial Army through the period of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), at which time its rateable value stood at £9.

The gate lodge and gate pillars were listed in 1980. The Italianate gate lodge at the Shore Road entrance to Fortwilliam Park had been demolished in 1955. By the 1980s the Antrim Road lodge had been converted into an antiques shop. The single-storey sandstone extension to the north was added around 1995 when the building was once again brought into use as a dwelling. It was subsequently converted to office premises in 2000.