50 Drumbeg Road, Ballygowan, Dunmurry, Belfast, County Down, BT17 9LE

50 Drumbeg Road is a late Victorian detached single-storey gate lodge built around 1894, constructed in polychromatic brick and accompanied by a high-quality cast-iron gate screen. The building originally served as the gate lodge to Ballygowan House, located to the south at the end of a bitumen avenue.

The lodge is square on plan and faces south, positioned perpendicular to the gate screen on the east side of Ballygowan Road. It is roofed with natural slate and features a hipped profile with clay ridge tiles. The chimneystack is constructed of profiled red and yellow brick laid in corbels, topped with an octagonal clay pot.

The walls are laid in red brick in Flemish bond with yellow brick quoins and a yellow brick plinth course. The cornice is formed from shaped yellow brick and incorporates cast-iron guttering, with cast-iron downpipes completing the drainage system. Window openings are square-headed with stop-chamfered surrounds, painted masonry sills, and vertically-glazed 2/2 timber sash windows.

The symmetrical south front elevation features a gabled former front entrance porch with decorative timber bargeboard and finial. The original front entrance, a square-headed opening flanked by stop-chamfered yellow brick corner pilasters, is now infilled with redbrick and a multi-pane timber window. Slender 2/2 timber sash windows occupy the cheeks either side of the porch.

The west elevation is one window wide and has been extended by a single-bay gabled section with decorative timber bargeboard and a 2/2 timber sash window, followed by a further single-bay flat-roofed extension containing a steel casement window. The east elevation mirrors this treatment and is abutted by an entrance porch with natural slate roof and replacement timber door with decorative brass furniture. The rear elevation is not accessible.

The building was extended sympathetically around 1925 with a gabled addition to the rear. The lodge retains much of its original character and is well detailed throughout.

The setting includes a decorative cast-iron gate screen positioned perpendicular to the lodge. The gates are mounted on octagonal stone piers with profiled stone capstones and are accompanied by a pair of matching cast-iron railings on a stone plinth wall following an S-plan, terminated by matching stone piers. To the east of the lodge is a small garden containing a wrought-iron arch and gate.

The property was built between 1858 and 1901, first appearing on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1901. William Macklin sold the property around 1894, when it passed to Richard Johnston, who was recorded as residing in Ballygowan House in 1901. The house later came into the possession of Dr. W. A. Anderson, an eminent eye surgeon, who owned it from at least 1937 until around 1970. Anderson renamed the house Ballyowan House in 1937. The lodge is now unoccupied but has been kept in good preservation, as have the original gate screen and entrance piers. The building has group value with Ballygowan House.