Gate Lodge, Convent of Mercy, Thornhill, Culmore Road, Londonderry, BT48 8JF

Gate Lodge, Convent of Mercy

A picturesque small gate lodge in single-storey stone, dating to around 1885 and contemporary with Thornhill House. The architects were Turner and Babington, who employed a Scots Baronial manner for this compact building, handling its picturesque outline with particular skill.

The lodge is one bay wide by three bays long with steeply pitched slated roofs clad in Bangor Blue slate with plain ridge tiles. The principal façade, facing the avenue, features a polygonal bay with a gable front. This bay is dressed in ashlar sandstone and contains three sash windows with two panes each, arranged across three facets, crowned by a pyramidal roof terminating in a tall decorative metal finial. The bay returns as far as the entrance door, which is set within a stepped gabled offset. The square-headed doorway is shouldered in ashlar work and has a timber door with one glazed panel. Centred on the gable above is a single two-pane sash window, with a small oculus above it lighting the roof space. A further setback contains another two-pane sash window; the wall continues to form part of a flat-roofed extension, which probably originally enclosed a yard or formed a screen. The opposite long wall features a slight projection beyond the polygonal bay and another stepped gable with similar fenestration, now enclosed by the flat-roofed extension. The apex of each stepped gable is crowned with a neat small stone sphere.

The walls are built of rockfaced, partially snecked sandstone similar to Thornhill House, with a chamfered plinth at the base. A single tall chimney stack in smooth rendering retains its moulding. The roofs have no overhangs. Ogee cast-iron gutters project from a plain chamfered string course, with cast-iron downpipes. The materials and detailing are in sympathy with the main house. The flat-roofed extension, added in the post-war years around 1960, has roughcast plastered walls and a mineral felt roof.

The lodge is well sited and maintained, set adjacent to the avenue with a well-kept lawn and a small hedge-enclosed garden to the rear. The composition extends to the adjoining gates, pillars, and balustrading, which together make an imposing approach to the entrance avenue.

The wrought-iron gates are set between two tall square pillars with moulded coping that rises in a pyramid and is topped with a sphere. On either side of the pillars runs moulded balustrading, which turns outwards for a short distance in a shallow curve; at the turn and at the end of the curved balustrading are further lower pillars, similarly treated. A low random rubble wall continues along the roadside, bounding the convent property. Six low blocks of masonry capped with spheres guide the carriageway to the gates. The pillars and balustrading are painted a striking cream colour, presumably concealing ashlar sandstone underneath.

As the random rubble wall proceeds northwards along the road verge, it rises to approximately 3.0 metres, where it forms one side of the former walled garden. An earlier gate lodge existed on this site, shown on the 1856 Ordnance Survey map; the present lodge is contemporary with Thornhill House. The designation includes the gate lodge, gates, pillars, and balustraded screen wall as a group.