Gate Lodge Of Wilmont, Lady Dixon Park, Belfast

Gate Lodge of Wilmont, Lady Dixon Park, Belfast

This is a red brick late Victorian gate lodge, built sometime between 1862 and 1901, marking the southernmost entrance to the former Wilmont demesne — now the 134-acre public parkland known as Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon Park, on the west side of Upper Malone Road in Belfast. The park takes its name from the owners who gifted the estate to Belfast Corporation in 1959. The lodge may be the work of architect Thomas Jackson, who is believed to have designed Wilmont House itself and a now-demolished northern lodge for the previous owner James Bristow around 1855–60. The present lodge shares stylistic traits with both of those buildings, though no documentary evidence has yet confirmed Jackson's involvement. It is thought to have been added to the demesne by Robert Sturrock Reade, who acquired the property in 1879, and its construction does not appear in the valuation books — not unusual for demesne-related structures of this type. The lodge was listed in 1980 and continues in use as a private residence.

The original structure is single storey with an attic, symmetrical in composition, and largely rectangular on plan, facing south. It is gabled, with a natural Welsh slate roof and deep overhanging eaves at both eaves and verge. Decorative bargeboards to the east and west gable ends are supported on curved brackets and feature a large-scale scalloped, trefoil-like profile with carved roundels at eaves, ridge, and purlins, all highlighted in black and white. Replacement timber sheeting covers the eaves soffit, and smooth render finishes the verge, both painted white in contrast to the black eaves and bargeboards. A lead-flashed ridge with a roll-top apex is finished with small black clay ridge tiles at the far east and west ends, beyond the chimneys.

The walls are red brick laid in Flemish bond, with painted brick dressings — likely yellow brick beneath the paint — including a projecting base plinth with a chamfered top edge, toothed quoins, and stop-chamfered reveals to all openings. The square-based, two-stage chimneys rise from external chimneybreasts at the gable ends and appear to have been rebuilt in red brick with a yellow brick diamond motif and string courses below a splayed chimney cap in reconstituted stone with a circular pot. Windows are slim-profile double-glazed sliding sashes with segmental arched heads and 2-over-2 panes with timber slips to the south elevation, and round-arched timber-framed casements to the gable ends. Rainwater goods are aluminium, with ogee gutters and circular-section downpipes.

The south elevation is symmetrical, with a central entrance door flanked by windows. The door is four-panelled and timber-framed, with slim double-glazed upper panels and a plain fanlight; it appears to be a modern replacement. The east gable elevation has toothed quoins returned from the north and south elevations at the outer corners. The chimneybreast is placed centrally with matching quoins to its lower half, tapering to meet the attic window surround, with a projecting band of four courses of painted brick between ground floor and attic level. To the left (south) of the chimneybreast at ground floor is a slit window — a timber-framed fixed light, single glazed and divided vertically into three panes, with a painted cill matching the main façade windows but with plain jambs and a soldier-coursed brick head. The west elevation mirrors the east, but without the ground floor window. The north elevation is abutted by the modern extension, with a slight recess marking the transition between old and new.

A substantial extension was added to the north around 1998–99 to designs by Harry Bunker, architect. It doubles the footprint of the original lodge and mirrors its gabled form, connected by a duo-pitched roof set at 90 degrees with a platform ridge. A former small return to the original building was demolished to accommodate the extension. Rooflights were installed in 2012. The extension materials are all modern and form no part of the historic description.

The lodge is surrounded by precast concrete brick pavers to the west, with mature planting and shrubs along the south and east sides of the path and a low-level timber picket fence bounding the front garden. A driveway entrance lies to the west, with a modern brick retaining wall along the north end of the site. Modern brick gate pillars and gates set adjacent to the lodge mark the southern entrance to Lady Dixon Park, leading to a public car park and the former stables and outbuildings, now converted to a café, offices, and storage for park maintenance vehicles. Immediately to the south of the lodge is a metal gate screen erected around 2005; photographic evidence shows the original gate screen at this entrance was of timber construction.

The lodge has group value with Wilmont House, the former stable block, and the walled garden. Although no longer within the current park boundary, the former estate workers' dwellings at Wilmont Cottages, which mark the north-west corner of the park, relate closely in style and character to the gate lodge and are likely to be broadly contemporary with it. Together, these buildings form an important ensemble within the Upper Malone area of Belfast. Further information on the planned landscape features and scheduled monuments of the wider demesne is available from the Northern Ireland Heritage Gardens Inventory (reference AN-068).