Gate Lodge and Gate Screen, Roselawn Cemetery and Crematorium, 127 Ballygowan Road, Belfast, County Antrim, BT5 7TZ

Gate Lodge and Gate Screen, Roselawn Cemetery, 127 Ballygowan Road, Belfast

This two-storey gate lodge, incorporated into a gate screen, was designed in 1952 and completed in 1954 as part of the new Roselawn Cemetery on the east side of Ballygowan Road, northwest of Crossnacreevy in the townland of Slatady. It represents a considered piece of mid-20th century civic architecture, designed specifically for its purpose, with a form and detailing characteristic of that period. It forms an architectural group with other similarly modern structures within the cemetery: the Crematorium Building and the Toilet Block, Porter's Lounge, and Concrete Gazebo.

The gate lodge is of square plan with adjoining single-storey flat-roofed abutments. The roof is a sprocketed pitched natural slate roof with clay ridge tiles, timber fascia and bargeboard, and replacement uPVC rainwater goods. There is a red-brick chimney. Walls are red brick laid to stretcher bond. Windows are replacement uPVC with masonry cills and soldier course lintels. The front door is a replacement panelled timber door with a concrete canopy, incorporated into the gate screen, with a wedge-shaped supporting concrete fin to the right.

The principal elevation faces east and is asymmetrically arranged, recessed into the gate screen. The door is positioned to the left, with three diminished vertical windows with projected concrete surrounds to the right. The left gable is asymmetrically arranged, with a projected chimneystack breaking through the gable apex. A single-storey flat-roofed abutment has a single large window to the left and a smaller window to the right on the south façade; its left and right cheeks are blank. The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged, with a single ground floor window to the left, three varying windows at first floor level, and a single-storey ground floor abutment to the left. The right gable is asymmetrically arranged with a single ground floor window, and is partially obscured by the adjoining gate screen to the left.

The gate screen is red brick laid to Flemish bond with a concrete coping and projected concrete plinth course. It contains three geometrical metal gates: two symmetrically arranged vehicular gates positioned centrally, and a further pedestrian gate to the far right, adjoining the gate lodge. A carved stone depicting the Belfast City Council crest is centrally positioned on the wall between the vehicular gates, with individually fixed lettering reading "BELFAST CITY COUNCIL" and "ROSELAWN CEMETERY AND CREMATORIUM". The section of wall to the left of the gates was rebuilt around 1990 following the destruction of a second gate lodge in a bomb explosion in March 1987. Further to the left, a bus shelter is incorporated into the screen, comprising an inclined concrete canopy supported by two slender steel columns.

Originally, there were two gate lodges at the entrance, each containing a living room, sitting room, kitchen, three bedrooms, bathroom, and WC. The cost of these and other structures on the site was £33,000. The entrance gates and boundary wall cost £6,900, with avenues and paths costing £135,100; coloured flags were supplied by Grainger Brothers of Holywood at a cost of £1,400.

The cemetery was established after burial space at Belfast City and Dundonald Cemeteries began to diminish, prompting Belfast Council to purchase land at Crossnacreevy and Slatady from Down County Council in 1952. The intention from the outset was to establish both a crematorium and a graveyard. The 106-acre site was designed as a lawn cemetery: unlike the city's older cemeteries, no pillars, railings, hoops, or similar enclosures were to be used around graves, with only a limited area at the head of each grave set aside for a headstone and planting. As recorded in the Roselawn Cemetery papers, "the cemetery will therefore have the appearance of a large lawn interspersed with headstones and consequently will be maintained in good order more economically than the existing cemeteries." Roses were planted along the main driveway, giving the site its name. The site was planned to provide 75,000 grave plots, to be developed in stages with 4,000 plots released in the initial phase. As the cemetery neared completion, Dundonald Cemetery was forced to close to new burials, and Roselawn opened earlier than intended, before permanent offices and lavatories had been completed. The land was dedicated in a ceremony on Thursday 6th April 1954, with representatives from the Church of Ireland, Presbyterian, and Methodist churches officiating.

Designs for a crematorium on the site, by city architect J. H. Swann, were prepared as early as 1956, though the building was not completed and officially opened until 10th May 1961. As the first crematorium in Ireland, it attracted considerable media and organisational interest. By the early 1950s, 15% of burials in Britain were of cremated remains, and opposition to cremation was diminishing in Northern Ireland. The first cremation at Roselawn took place in July 1961, with an expected capacity of around 700 bodies per year. In 1963 the Catholic Church lifted its ban on cremation for Catholics; nonetheless, no crematorium existed in the Republic of Ireland until 1982, and Roselawn remains one of only three crematoria on the island of Ireland and the only one in the province. In 1979 the cemetery was extended by 17 acres, and further land has been added over subsequent years. The site has been progressively landscaped and now includes a number of lakes and water features.

Among those buried at Roselawn are Northern Ireland footballer George Best (1946–2005) and Unionist MP James Kilfedder (1928–1995). The site also contains graves connected to the Troubles, including those of police and prison officers, soldiers, and victims of the Abercorn Restaurant, Oxford Street, and La Mon House Hotel bombings.

The gate screen and gate lodge are located directly at the cemetery entrance, adjacent to the main road. Beyond the entrance, a network of roads gives access to the various sections of the complex, with the surrounding landscape comprising areas of grass, flower beds, and trees. Opposite the gate screen is open rural landscape.