Lion Gate Lodge, Downhill, Castlerock, Co. Londonderry

Lion Gate Lodge, Downhill

A pair of free-standing aediculated sandstone gate piers erected around 1780, surmounting a pair of statues of lions and flanked by rubblestone screen walls. Located along the north side of Mussenden Road as the principal entrance to Downhill Palace and the walled garden and dove-cote beyond, the gateway was originally known as the West Gate and represents the first entrance gateway to be built to Downhill Castle. The design is Wyattesque in character but was executed by architect Michael Shanahan.

The front west elevation of each pier is built in pink sandstone ashlar and comprises a central niche with wave-moulded course to the base and a fluted course at impost level. A rectangular panel above is embellished with bell-flower festoons. Each niche is flanked by full-height quarter-engaged Doric columns on plinth bases with gadroon-embellished capitals and fluted necks. The columns support an architrave, frieze and mutuled cornice. The frieze displays bucrania linked by bell-flower garlands with corresponding guttae encroaching the architrave. Each crowning cornice is lead-lined and supports a replacement statue of a lion holding a sphere, mounted on a rectangular base. The piers support a pair of wrought-iron gates with spear-head finials.

The rear east elevation of each pier is also built in pink sandstone ashlar and comprises a shallow round-headed panel with vermiculated base and keystone, flanked by full-height Doric pilasters having alternating smooth and vermiculated stonework on raised plinths. Each pair of pilasters support a full Doric entablature with triglyphs and paterae to the metopes, surmounted by a mutuled crowning cornice.

Each pier is flanked by a curved rubblestone screen wall with segmental-headed blind panels and concrete coping. The wall to the north incorporates a pedestrian opening with voussoired basalt head and redbrick jambs.

The creatures originally surmounting the gateway were technically known in heraldry as ounces (leopards or lynxes), resembling the leopard-like animals on the Hervey coat of arms. These were added around 1787. The identity of the original carver remains uncertain; payments recorded in 1780 and 1787 refer to Mr Foy and Thomas McWilliams with respect to the leopards, and it has also been suggested that the carvings were made locally by a Mr McCullough. Shanahan, who maintained workshops in Cork where much of the architectural decoration for Downhill was carved, noted in 1787 that his original choice of carver had died, delaying completion of the leopards.

Gate lodges originally stood on either side of the gateway, probably erected in 1791 according to correspondence of that year noting they were being plastered. The gateway was under construction in 1783 when Shanahan suggested to his patron that a small gate in either wall joining the piers would be useful. One of these gateways was constructed, though its date is unclear, and survives to the present day. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1831 records two gate lodges, and a survey photograph of 1977 documents the last remaining lodge, now demolished. In 1976 the remaining gate lodge was partially demolished in a road widening scheme. The gate and lodge were listed in 1978, but the lodge did not survive a further road realignment by the Department of the Environment and was demolished in the early 1980s.

By the 1970s only one ounce remained over the gateway. A restoration project was undertaken by Cliveden Restoration of Maidenhead. Two new ounces were carved and remounted on the gate piers, and the piers themselves were also conserved and repaired. The original ounce was retained and is now on display at Hezlett House.

The gateway forms an impressive composition in the landscape, with the Adamesque stone detailing on the piers representing a formidable exercise in neo-classical stone carving that prepares the visitor for the splendour of Downhill Palace in the distance. The setting comprises a front lawned area along the north side of Mussenden Road providing public access to both the palace and the walled garden via a bitumac driveway, with direct views of Downhill Palace from the gateway.