Lodge, 18 Springhill Road, Moneymore, Magherafelt, Co Londonderry, BT45 7NQ

This Tudor-style gate lodge, dating to circa 1840, is situated on a narrow strip of land between Springhill Road and the entrance avenue, close to the modest entrance gates, piers, and estate wall. It was extended around 1970 with a sympathetic addition of two bedrooms at the southern end. The lodge is now occupied by a retired estate gardener who previously worked for the estate.

The lodge is a four-bay, single-story building with gabled roofs covered in natural slates with lead roll ridges and hips. The front elevation, which faces east onto Springhill Avenue, features four bays. The end bays are gabled, each with two-light, six-pane casement windows with horizontal hood mouldings. A gabled porch projects from the front, with a three-panelled door set two steps above blocking plinths. Between the porch and the south gable is a single eight-pane casement with a hood moulding. The walls are finished in harling with prominent quoins, all painted white, with decorative bargeboards and fascias except on the porch. A low plinth runs around the base.

On the south side are two eight-pane casements with hoods, similar to those on the front. The walls are harled and quoined, without fascias, with exposed rafter feet and a half-round metal gutter and downpipe. The west side features a single gable at the south end, windowless, with walls finished as before and exposed rafter feet, a half-round metal gutter, and a hipped roof at the north end. There is one three-light, eight-pane casement window with a hood moulding, and a single sheeted back door with a corrugated plastic canopy supported by brackets, and a further eight-pane casement with a hood moulding. A temporary lean-to structure is situated in the angle of the projecting bay at the rear. The north side has one two-light, six-pane casement window with a hood. Creepers cover parts of the walls. Two red brick chimney stacks, diagonally placed on either side of the main ridge and touching, rise from the roof.

The lodge may have been built by “Wims” Lenox-Conyngham, who inherited the property around 1840. It was not shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1832, but appears on the revised map of 1856. The property passed to the National Trust in 1957.

The lodge is approached by two low, square ashlar sandstone piers with a moulded plinth, faced panels, and large, chamfered capping stones. Iron gates with restrained decoration stand between the piers. Low rubble stone walls bound the estate on either side of the gate piers. The building is listed along with the gate, piers, and boundary wall, and is noted for its architectural style, proportions, ornamentation, plan form, setting, and group value, as well as its local historical interest.