Gateway to Pleasure Garden, St. Malachy's Parish Church of Ireland, Main Street, Hillsborough, Co. Down, BT26 6AE

Gateway to Pleasure Garden, St. Malachy's Parish Church of Ireland, Hillsborough

This is a free-standing gate screen erected between 1740 and 1759, set on a north-south axis at a corner of the boundary wall to the church and graveyard, to the northeast of the entrance tower. The structure possibly incorporates remnants of an earlier 17th-century church on the site, and historically provided access to the Pleasure Garden which extended as far as Ballynahinch Street.

The principal east elevation features an equilateral-arched door opening formed in granite ashlar with deep moulded reveals, flanked by a pair of simple engaged granite columns with base mouldings and capitals at impost level. A carved granite course spans the entire width at impost level, with rubble masonry below and channel rusticated granite ashlar above. The equilateral arch is surmounted by a keystone carved as a bishop's head. The screen is topped by a crenellated parapet wall with a single central merlon flanked by a pair of crenels, all surmounted by continuous moulded coping. Three granite pinnacles on raised plinths rise above the crenellated parapet. The archway contains a timber flat-panelled door with iron studs and timber door knob, hung on iron hinges to the stone jamb.

To the west, the gate screen is accessed by a long flight of granite steps with wrought-iron handrail embellished with balusters (two per step). This elevation features a segmental-arched opening in granite ashlar, with rubble basalt forming the remainder and finished with granite ashlar quoins at either end.

The gateway retains most of its original fabric and early appearance. The pinnacles, bishop's head and rustic timber door are of considerable craftsmanship and add great character to the church complex, evoking the early Gothic character of this historic site.

Historical evidence suggests the gateway is a remnant of the 1636 church which was burned during the 1641 rebellion. It was chiefly used by the Church Organist who lived on Ballynahinch Street in a house provided by the church. Early plans and the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834 show a path on the current site leading from the church to the pleasure gardens, though no structure appears until later records. Subsequent cartographic editions show no change to the layout. The gateway is partly hidden by church ivy and is in a state of disrepair. Today a care home, named Cromlyn Fold, occupies the former site of the Pleasure Gardens, with only a small square of garden remaining to which the gateway and its rear steps lead.