Rear Gate Lodge, 206 Drum Road, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 9RU

Rear Gate Lodge, Drum Road, Cookstown

This is a well-proportioned and detailed mid-nineteenth century gatehouse built around 1870-71 to the designs of architect William Hastings, who was working on the redesign of the adjacent main house at the same time. It replaced an earlier lodge situated further to the east, shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1857. The building is constructed of ashlar sandstone with a tooled surface, set on a chamfered stone base, and retains considerable architectural quality through its stone dressings and fine detailing.

The gatehouse is one-and-a-half storeys, roughly rectangular in plan with a projecting single-storey porch to the front. The front east elevation is symmetrical, featuring a projecting central gabled porch with a shallow pointed arched door opening with chamfered stone reveal. The door is timber-sheeted with a segmental-headed overlight set on a cut-stone step. Above the door is a carved-stone pointed-arched drip moulding with label stops. The porch roof is pitched with a carved stone verge to the gable and a rectangular cut-stone and wrought-iron finial to the apex. Half-buttresses flank each side of the central porch.

Ground floor windows are square-headed with chamfered stone surrounds and splayed sills, fitted with 1/1 timber sliding sash frames beneath square-headed carved stone drip mouldings. The side south elevation is gable-ended with a projecting chimneystack at the centre. First floor windows on this elevation are pointed-arched with chamfered stone surrounds, drip mouldings, and splayed stone sills. A double chimney rises to the apex of the gable. The side north elevation is also gable-ended with a square-headed ground floor window and a pointed-arched first floor window with matching surrounds. Above the first floor windows runs a profiled string course, and set into the first floor is a recessed carved stone panel depicting a coat of arms showing a rampant lion and a unicorn's head surmounted by a crown, inscribed 'O.F.C' with ribbons at the base inscribed 'VIRTUTI PAR ET ROBOR FORWARD'.

External walls feature a dentilled carved-stone course and plain projecting cornice at eaves level. The roof is pitched and slated with pierced clay ridge tiles. All chimneys are cut-stone with profiled cappings, and all gables have raised carved stone skews and kneelers.

Later additions to the building include a two-storey pitched and hipped extension to the rear west, built around 1990, with four square-headed ground floor windows and two dormered first floor windows to the north elevation, and an arrangement of windows with a single square-headed timber-sheeted door to the south elevation. External walls of the extension match the existing ashlar sandstone, with a pitched and hipped roof of artificial slate and pierced clay ridge tiles, including a sandstone chimney with cast-iron rainwater goods. A single-storey conservatory with fully glazed timber frames and sandstone base was added to the southwest around 1990, and a single-storey outbuilding to the rear west contains square-headed timber casement windows and a large timber-sheeted garage door. A paved and tarmac yard surrounds the house to the south and east. The original front section has been well preserved externally, and the rear extension is generally well considered and does not overly detract from the gatehouse's character.

The entrance features two sandstone pillars with projecting cornices and cut-stone pyramidal cappings, linked by a curved wall of cut and chamfered stone set on a base with painted wrought-iron railings. Decorative painted wrought-iron double gates are hung between the pillars. The gate screen has been moved to its current position following realignment of the main road.

The house retains important group value with Drum Manor, the main house, and with another gate lodge on the estate, sharing the wooded setting. The occupant in 1935 was recorded as Joseph Somerville, but the building was listed as vacant when the Ministry of Agriculture for Northern Ireland took possession of the Drum Manor estate in the mid-1960s.