Eglantine Gate Lodge, Eglantine Estate, 266 Hillsborough Road, Carbane, Hillsborough, Co. Down, BT27 5RJ

Eglantine Gate Lodge is a former gate lodge and gate screen dating from around 1845, designed by the architect Charles Lanyon as part of his wider reconstruction of the Eglantine Estate. It stands on the west side of Hillsborough Road, Hillsborough, County Down, and forms a pair with Eglantine House to the north. J. A. K. Dean described this as one of "the most ostentatious and innovative" of Lanyon's series of gate lodges.

A earlier gate lodge is visible as a small, indistinct building on the first edition Ordnance Survey maps of 1834. The present lodge replaced it around 1845, and appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey maps, where it is named and shown clearly in its cruciform form. The gate screen is contemporary with the lodge and was almost certainly also designed by Lanyon. Between 1856 and 1864, Griffith's Valuation lists the gate lodge collectively under the heading "house, offices, gate lodge and land" without giving it an individual value. Later Ordnance Survey editions record no changes to the building's form. From 1905, the gate lodge was given its own separate valuation record, assessed at £3 10s., and a valuer's note in 1906 records that it had been used as a house before 1905 and as a gate lodge after that date. The occupancy of the lodge changed frequently from 1905 onwards, though its valuation remained constant until the Annual Revision records for the area end in 1929. By 1994, the building had been falling steadily into dereliction, and Dean recorded it in a dilapidated state while noting that a restoration scheme was planned. That scheme appears to have been carried out, and the building today is well preserved and in private residential use. Its original purpose as a gate lodge guarding the approach to Eglantine House has long been redundant, as the house itself was destroyed by fire in the late 1980s and was at the time of listing undergoing extensive reconstruction.

The lodge is a single-bay, one-and-a-half-storey rendered building of cruciform plan, facing north, with the east side elevation fronting onto Hillsborough Road. A modern timber conservatory of octagonal plan has been added to the rear, and a detached garage was built to the southeast around 1995. Despite these alterations, the lodge retains its original cruciform plan, its handsome portico, its roof detailing, and its original timber sash windows, all of which are characteristic of Lanyon's work of this period.

The roof is a low-pitched cruciform form covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles and a central bracketed rendered chimneystack. The deep overhanging eaves are supported on decorative moulded brackets attached to a continuous string course, and the purlin ends to all gables are moulded as eaves brackets with a timber fascia finish. Rainwater goods are replacement metal and plastic. The external walls are painted rendered with a painted masonry plinth course, a continuous plat-band at impost level, and decorative moulded quoins. Window openings are round-headed with smooth render surrounds, moulded sills on block supports, and original multi-pane timber sash windows.

The north front elevation is dominated by a tetrastyle gabled portico of considerable architectural quality. Three arches with moulded archivolts and scrolled keystones spring from Doric red sandstone columns at the centre, with square piers at either end, all set on moulded bases and plinth blocks. The portico has stone flags at ground level, an arch to either end, and a blind keystoned oculus to the gable. Behind the portico, three arch mouldings spring from a pair of Doric pilasters flanking the central door opening, which contains a possibly replacement timber door with six flat panels surmounted by an original webbed fanlight.

The east side elevation has a single-bay gabled projection containing an elaborate tripartite window surmounted by a diminutive round-headed window. Round-headed window openings appear to either side of this main east elevation, with the rearmost opening blocked up to the lower sash. The south rear elevation has three slender round-headed window openings tied together by a continuous sill and the impost plat-band, with a keystoned oculus above in the gable fitted with a fixed-pane light. The west side elevation has a single-bay gabled projection with a round-headed window below and an oculus to the gable, with the modern octagonal timber-frame conservatory to its right.

The interior retains little original fabric, though some of the original character is still evident.

The gate screen stands slightly to the north of the lodge on a north-south axis, facing east onto Hillsborough Road. It consists of a central cast-iron double carriage entrance and wicket gates on decorative sandstone piers, abutted by rendered quadrant walls. The double carriage gates are supported on square-plan reticulated sandstone piers on plinth blocks, with bracketed and panelled frieze and capstones surmounted by octagonal block finials. Matching wicket gates to either side are supported on sandstone piers of the same design, except with a plain frieze and capstone and no block finial, though the south pier finial may be a replacement. Painted ruled-and-lined rendered quadrant walls extend to either side, with moulded sandstone coping and a scrolled sandstone bracket against the outer piers. A plainer sandstone ashlar pier terminates each quadrant wall at the road, each with a further scrolled bracket. The cast-iron gates are decorated with delicate scroll motifs. Although it is reasonable to suppose that some form of gate screen existed on the site before 1845, the current screen is contemporary with the lodge.

The lodge sits within its original landscape setting, positioned behind a rubblestone boundary wall to the former demesne with the east elevation fronting onto a bitmac avenue. It has group value with Eglantine House and makes a positive contribution to the architectural character of the estate and the wider heritage of the Lisburn area.