Gate lodge and Gate Screen Kilwaughter Castle, Deerpark Road, Kilwaughter, Larne, Co Antrim

Gate Lodge and Gate Screen, Kilwaughter Castle

This is a gate lodge and entrance screen that originally formed the main entrance to the Kilwaughter Castle demesne, situated alongside the main road in a deeply rural setting against a backdrop of mature trees and thick vegetation. The structure dates from the mid-19th century and is attributed at least partly, if not entirely, to John Nash, one of the most significant British architects of the period, giving it international architectural significance alongside its local importance as the gateway to an important estate.

The complex is a composite of two distinct elements: a one-and-a-half-storey gate lodge built of random rubble grey stone with roughly dressed corners and gabled slate roofs, connected at its side to a screen wall and gateway of regular coursed grey stone. Despite the loss of the original archway between the gate piers and the addition of a substantial modern extension to the rear of the lodge, the two parts together read as a picturesque group well-suited to their setting.

The Gateway

The gateway faces east and consists of a pair of octagonal piers built of snecked squared grey stone in regular courses. Each pier has a rounded sandstone cornice supporting crenellations, and narrow vertical unglazed slit openings dressed in sandstone at high level. There is a rounded projecting base moulding to the outer faces of each pier, but the inner faces — to about two-thirds of their height — are finished in smooth cement render, lined and blocked to imitate stonework, a later modification carried out when the original archway between the piers was removed. This removal took place during the Second World War (1939–45), when Kilwaughter Castle was requisitioned as an American Army Transit Camp and the opening needed to accommodate large vehicles. A photograph showing the original archway intact is included in J.A.K. Dean's The Gate Lodges of Ulster (Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, Belfast, 1994, p. 18). Tree growth has established itself in the top of each pier. Later signs have been fixed to the front face of each pier — a metal sign to the south pier and a wooden one to the north. A modern tubular steel gate now closes the entrance.

To each side of the piers runs a screen wall of squared grey stone in regular courses, topped with crenellations bearing sandstone copings of weathered profile. The third crenellation north of the north pier is damaged and its coping is missing. A satellite dish is attached to the front face of the north screen wall. At its right-hand (east) end the screen wall returns to abut the lodge. On the south side it extends to the main roadside, where it angles back for two crenellations before being continued by the rubble basalt boundary wall. The rear faces of the screen wall are of similar quality stonework to the front, though at the rear of the eastern return the material changes to roughly squared basalt in rough courses, with dressed quoins at the outer corner. A lean-to wooden shed stands against the rear face of this return. The driveway surface between the piers is soft — grass and mud immediately behind the gateway, merging to grass and hard-standing immediately in front.

The Gate Lodge — South (Main) Elevation

The main entrance faces south, and the south elevation is of two bays: a small gabled porch projects forward from the centre of a large gabled projection to the left, with a rectangular window to the right. The main roof is laid in large Bangor blue slates in irregular courses, with evidence of re-slating to its upper half. The ridge is finished with red terracotta tiles with serrated cresting, broken through at the centre by the cross-ridge of the rear extension. The original finials at each end of the ridge are now missing. The gabled projection has similar Bangor blue slates but plain terracotta ridge tiles; its original front finial is also missing. Moss has gathered in the roof valleys. Oversailing white-painted wooden barge boards with decorative cusping run to the gables, though the bottom of the left-hand barge is broken and rotted, and two cuspings are broken off at the top of the right-hand barge. The PVC gutter is not closed at either end.

The porch roof is laid in Bangor blue slates in regular courses with serrated terracotta ridge tiles, and has oversailing ornamental barge boards matching those elsewhere — these are complete. The soffits are sheeted with hardboard, partly rotted on the left-hand side. Lead flashing is missing at the base on each side of the porch. Porch walls are of grey stone rubble in rough courses with original lime mortar. The door opening is spanned by a red brick Tudor arch, with red brickwork continuing to the apex of the gable above. The reveals of the recessed doorway are white-painted cement render. The door frame is chamfered wood of Tudor-arched profile. The double doors are of ledged pine, varnished, and are new replacements fitted with a new metal letterbox but retaining what appears to be an original old iron octagonal doorknob. Moulded sandstone plinths flank each side of the doorway, though the left-hand plinth is partly missing; similar plinth moulding continues along the east side of the porch and returns across the south face of the lodge, with some blocks missing. The west wall of the porch is blank with a plain eaves fascia. The east wall of the porch also has a plain eaves fascia, with a narrow round-headed window below it, set in a dark stained and varnished pine surround; the window frame is white-painted wood with lozenge-pattern glazing bars, fitted with tinted translucent glass that is not original, and has a cement-rendered cill painted white.

To the right of the porch, the south wall of the lodge has a two-light fixed window in white-painted timber with wooden lozenge-pattern glazing bars, set in a dark stained and varnished pine surround with a central mullion. The cill is splayed white-painted cement, and the window has a white-painted wooden lintel surmounted by a brown-painted wooden dripboard that slopes down and is carried on shaped, curved, white-painted brackets to each side.

The Gate Lodge — West Elevation

The west elevation is gabled, with oversailing decorative barge boarding matching that elsewhere — complete except for a section rotted away at the bottom of the right-hand side. The ground floor has a rectangular three-light window with a splayed cement cill, a painted wooden lintel, and chamfered frames with chamfered mullions. The glazing bars are of lozenge pattern in wood, filled with new translucent glass of various tints and patterns. At attic level there is a narrow semi-circular headed window with some red brick dressings to the head, a white-painted timber frame, and matching lozenge-pattern glazing with plain glass.

Projecting forward from the left-hand side of the main west gable is a screen wall of squared grey stone in regular courses with crenellations, containing a Tudor-arched opening close to the lodge and extending to meet the front screen wall of the castle entrance gateway. Rusted iron remains of the supports for the original door survive in the archway, though the door itself is gone. The rear face of the Tudor-arched opening has a flat arch. The property of the lodge owner extends along this screen wall as far as the end of the third crenellation, including the Tudor-arched opening. Beyond this screen, on the west elevation of the lodge, a roughly dressed basalt nib wall steps back to a short length of basalt rubble walling containing some roughly squared blocks and having an irregular curved outline, which is presumably the end wall of an original lean-to rear projection now absorbed into the newly rendered wall of the rear extension.

The Gate Lodge — Rear Extension

The rear extension roof is of Bangor blue slates in regular courses with serrated terracotta ridge tiles, broken near the right-hand side by a short square chimney of concrete blockwork with concrete copings but an original-looking pot. The valley between the original lodge roof and the extension roof appears to be zinc-flashed. The extension has a timber fascia, PVC gutter, and a square-section PVC downpipe. Its wall finish is smooth cement render with a crude attempt to simulate stonework by means of roughly curving channels scoured into the surface. There is a rectangular doorway with cement-rendered reveals, fitted with a new glazed and panelled teak door with modern translucent glass incorporating a leaf pattern, a modern brass handle, and a modern brass-like metal draught excluder affixed around the frame.

The Gate Lodge — North Elevation

The north elevation presents the two-storey gable of the rear extension, with the rear roof of the original lodge appearing to each side behind it. The extension gable is cement-rendered with the same crude imitation stonework finish as on the west side. Shaped timber barge boards are new. To each floor there is a rectangular teak window comprising two fixed plate glass lights with a side-hung casement of lozenge-pattern leading, all double-glazed.

The Gate Lodge — East Elevation

The east elevation shows the east gable of the original lodge to the left, with the side wall of the rear extension projecting to the right. The lodge gable has oversailing decorative barge boards as elsewhere, complete, with white-painted hardboard soffits to the overhang. At ground floor level there is a two-light rectangular window with a sloping dripboard, detailed as on the south elevation. At first floor level there is a round-headed window as on the west gable but with a dark stained and varnished pine frame.

The east wall of the extension is set back slightly from the lodge gable and is cement-rendered in the same manner as elsewhere, though it also incorporates basalt walling from the original lean-to rear extension of the lodge, built of roughly squared blocks with some galleting. The extension roof matches that described on the west side, with similar rainwater goods. A gabled dormer has a roof of similar slates but plain terracotta ridge tiles, with PVC guttering to each side; its front and cheeks are plywood with shaped wooden barge boards, all timber yet to receive a final finish. The dormer window consists of two-light side-hung casements matching those elsewhere on the extension. The doorway from the east has rectangular double doors of new teak, glazed with small panes of bevelled glass, approached by two steps finished with modern concrete paving slabs.

Projecting from the centre of the east elevation, near the right-hand side of the original lodge gable, is a low screen wall of roughly squared grey stone in regular courses extending to the side boundary at the roadside, but broken through at an intermediate point to create an access to the rear garden.

Setting and Historical Context

The gate screen is shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1832, at which date a smaller gate lodge than the present one also appears. The present lodge appears for the first time on the Ordnance Survey map of 1857, indicating a rebuilding or enlargement between those dates. The setting remains strongly rural, with the structures seen against mature trees and thick vegetation. The front garden area is bounded by a modern slatted wooden fence, partly dismantled at the time of survey to allow access during building works in progress on the lodge. The fence continues northward to meet stone walling that is partly damaged; this walling continues as far as a stream which it straddles. The lodge is bounded on its north side by that stream.

A source reference for this structure appears in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Volume 10: Parishes of County Antrim III, page 109, as well as in J.A.K. Dean's The Gate Lodges of Ulster (Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, Belfast, 1994, page 18).