Main Gate Lodge, Drum Manor, 1 Glenarney Road, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 9DX

Main Gate Lodge, Drum Manor

This is a well-proportioned mid-nineteenth century gatehouse of considerable picturesque quality, built between 1870 and 1871 according to valuation records, though some sources date it to circa 1876. It was designed by architect William Hastings, who was working on the redesign of Drum Manor at the time. The stone dressings and fine detailing enhance the overall ornamentation of the gatehouse. Its prominent location adjacent to the main entrance to Drum Manor and the survival of the impressive gate screen adds a sense of importance and contributes to the group value of the listed buildings.

The building is a one-and-a-half storey gatehouse of roughly rectangular plan. It features a projecting single-storey gabled porch to the front elevation, a single-storey hipped return to the rear northeast, and a single-storey flat-roofed return to the rear northwest, with a paved yard behind. The house is set directly facing the gravelled entrance road to Drum Manor, with the original entrance gate of Drum Manor located immediately to the southeast.

The front south elevation is symmetrical and faces onto the entrance to Drum Manor. A projecting central gabled porch contains a square-headed doorway with chamfered stone surrounds. The door is timber sheeted with a rectangular overlight and set on a cut-stone step. The roof is pitched with a carved stone verge to the gable and a rectangular cut-stone wrought-iron finial to the apex. Ground-floor windows have chamfered stone surrounds to 1/1 timber sliding sash frames, with chamfered lintels and decorative cut-stone relieving arches above.

The west side elevation is gable-ended with a projecting chimneystack to the centre and square-headed windows to the first floor with chamfered stone surrounds and cut-stone sills. There is a chimney to the apex of the gable. The east side elevation is gable-ended with square-headed windows to both ground and first floors with surrounds as described above. A dentilled eaves course is visible.

External walls are constructed of sandstone with a cut and chamfered stone base and a dentilled carved-stone course at eaves level. The roof is pitched and slated with chimneys to the west gable and one slightly off centre, with skews and kneelers to all gables.

The single-storey hipped return has no openings to the side east elevation. The rear elevation features a square-headed 1/1 timber sliding sash window. The single-storey flat-roofed return also has a square-headed 1/1 timber sliding sash window to the rear, with no visible openings to the side elevation. Rainwater goods are cast-iron. The rear extension does not overly detract from the original building.

The entrance gate to Drum Manor comprises a gate screen composed of four cut-stone buttresses supporting a sandstone wall with profiled and castellated capping. An octagonal turret stands to the south. There is a shallow pointed arched entrance gate opening (gate now missing) with a splayed surround, surmounted by a carved drip moulding with label stops and a carved coat of arms above. Narrow splayed faux arrow slit windows flank each side of this opening, with cut-stone sills and lintels. The turret has four long narrow slits, one at each compass point.

The gatehouse is located off Glenarney Road, sited behind the main entrance gate to Drum Manor within the Oaklands, a landscaped public estate with extensive fields, trees and ponds. This shares group value with Drum Manor and the other gate lodge.

Historical records indicate the building was occupied by a succession of tenants: John Taylor in 1887, John Costelloe in 1891, John Costley in 1893, William McCormick in 1895, Andrew Watson in 1897, Robert Allen in 1898, and John Kelly from 1910. The gate lodge adds to the local history of the Oaklands area and to the nineteenth century character of the surrounding rural environs.