Lodge at Greenvale, Drum Road, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8QS

This is a detached single-storey former gate lodge to Greenvale House, built around 1840 and now used as a private dwelling. It is attributed — with reasonable confidence by architectural historians Rowan and Dean — to the architect William Farrell, based on its close resemblance to a lodge he designed at Ely Lodge, County Fermanagh. It is a well-preserved example of a small picturesque mid-19th-century gate lodge, designed in a picturesque Classical style.

The building is rendered throughout, with a hipped and slated main roof and wide overhanging eaves. A large moulded double chimney rises from the centre of the main roof, and ridges are finished with plain ridge tiles. All rainwater goods are cast iron. To the rear there are original single-storey returns, now joined together, along with a further modern return. The return roofs are also hipped and slated.

The front elevation, which faces north-east onto the entrance to Greenvale House, is symmetrical and features a central projecting semi-circular portico. This is supported on two rounded Tuscan columns with moulded caps, with rectangular pilasters to each side of the opening also carrying projecting moulded caps. The pilasters support a plain rendered semi-circular frieze. The interior of the porch is semi-circular in plan, reflecting the form of the portico, and contains a square-headed doorway fitted with a replacement timber panelled door. To either side of the entrance bay are square-headed windows with cut-stone surrounds and sills, projecting cut-stone hoods, and painted timber 1-over-1 sliding sash windows. The porch has a half-conical slated roof.

The south-eastern side elevation fronts onto Drum Road and presents two sections: the main hipped block to the right and the hipped returns to the left. The original part of the returns projects slightly forward of the front block, and the wall of the modern return continues this line. Windows on this elevation have cut-stone surrounds and sills, projecting cut-stone hoods, and painted timber 1-over-1 sliding sash windows.

The north-western side elevation is divided into three sections: the main hipped block to the left, the hipped original return in the centre, and the side of the modern return to the right. Again, the original return projects slightly forward of the front block. Windows here have cut-stone surrounds and sills and painted timber 1-over-1 sliding sash windows. There are also metal roller shutters with projecting metal boxes over them on this elevation, and a square-headed door within the internal angle of the L-shaped return with matching dressings. The remainder of the north-western side and the south-western rear elevation is obscured by a timber picket fence, and no further openings are visible to the rear.

The lodge was built at some point between 1834 and 1857. It does not appear on the Ordnance Survey plan of 1833 or in the first valuation of 1834, but is shown on the revised Ordnance Survey map of 1857 and recorded — as an annotation — in the valuation book of the following year. It was built to serve Greenvale House, the residence of the Adair family, who were the owners of a flax spinning mill that originally stood to the south-west. Greenvale House itself is probably an 18th-century building. The Greenvale estate appears to have remained in Adair family hands until the late 1970s, when the house was converted into a hotel. The lodge remained in Adair ownership until at least 1956 but appears to have been sold in the early 1970s.

The former gate lodge sits slightly set back from Drum Road, on the corner of the main driveway into Greenvale House. It is enclosed by a low rendered wall with cast-iron railings to the north-east and a higher rendered wall to the south-east. The wall has simple rendered square pillars with painted pyramidal stone caps. A vehicle entrance gate is located to the north-west, and there is a gravel parking area to the north. The building stands on the south-western edge of Cookstown town centre, at the beginning of the predominantly suburban Drum Road.