Rossmore Gates & Lodge, Lissan House Demesne, Drumgrass Road, Cookstown, BT80 9SW

Rossmore Gates and Lodge

This early 19th-century gateway and lodge of modest dimensions stand at the main entrance to the Lissan House demesne. Although of generally plain appearance, the gate piers and screen walls hold considerable local interest both as an example of their type and through association with an important demesne, forming part of a valuable group of buildings within it. The lodge displays picturesque cottage style characteristics with its diagonally placed chimneys and other details. The lodge is in a dilapidated condition and has lost numerous original features through dereliction, most notably its windows, some of which were reportedly of oriel type. While the basic structure and form survive, the lodge itself does not merit individual listing.

The main estate access comprises a pair of cut-sandstone piers, now without gates, flanked by lower screen walls of rubble stonework. The piers are of oblong plan, formed as a rectangle with curved recessed corners, leaving the front, back, and two end faces as flat pilaster strips. The tops display a very shallow weathered form with a fine moulded cornice, though now much damaged. Associated with the piers is a single-storey three-bay building of rendered stonework with a slated roof.

The gate lodge stands a little way into the demesne. Its main entrance faces east, with a symmetrical elevation comprising one window to each side of a central doorway. The roofing is of Bangor blue slates in regular courses with overhanging eaves on projecting rafters. Two central chimneys are diagonally placed on a rendered base of smooth render, with a moulded cornice still remaining on one. The walling is of harled rubble stonework. Window openings are rectangular with timber frames, though now missing glazing bars. The entrance contains a timber boarded door. The south gable has plain timber barge boards oversailing on projecting purlins with shaped ends and contains one rectangular window, now lacking glazing. The other elevations are of similarly plain character, with a small rectangular extension projecting from the rear elevation.

The lodge is set at right angles to and back from the main driveway to Lissan House, within a grassed and overgrown plot. A ruinous single-storey outbuilding stands to the rear of the lodge, and a stone boundary wall fronts the property. This wall connects to the stone gate piers, forming the gateway to Lissan House.

The precise date is not known, but the structure appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1833 and may be presumed to date from around 1830, within the period 1820 to 1839. The lodge reportedly had small oriel bays added to it sometime later. It has lain empty for many years.