White gate lodge, Tollymore Park, 38 Hilltown Road, Tollymore Park, Newcastle, Co Down, BT33 0PZ

White Gate Lodge is a picturesque one-and-a-half-storey Tudor Revival gate lodge built in 1876 to a design by architect John Birch, commissioned by the 4th Earl of Roden. It stands at the north-west entrance to Tollymore Park, on the south side of the Hilltown Road, approximately three miles west of Newcastle and roughly one mile west of Bryansford.

The front façade faces roughly south and is symmetrical in composition. At its centre is a lych-gate-like porch with a steeply pitched tiled gabled roof and decorative bargeboard. The sides of the porch incorporate short built-in benches. Within the porch, the doorway is fitted with a timber-sheeted door set within bevelled sandstone dressings. To the left of the doorway is a small window with a similar surround and an unusual frame with margins to the upper light; a matching window sits to the right. The lower half of the façade throughout is built in dark fieldstone rubble, thought to be basalt, with slightly lighter grey granite quoins. The upper portion of the façade is jettied and finished in what is presumably decorative, rather than structural, half-timbering.

The shorter west façade features a centrally placed single-storey shallow canted bay window with a bracketed overhanging pitched roof, the window panes matching those to the front. Directly above this is a shallow square oriel window with a three-light frame, matching panes, decorative brackets with turned drops, and an overhanging pitched roof that flows into the main mansard roof. The east façade has a centrally located pair of small windows at ground level, matching those to the front. At the upper level there is a central four-pane window with a smaller two-pane window to its right. Below the central window is a diamond-shaped date panel inscribed '1876'.

To the centre and left at the rear is a single-storey lean-to, whose roof merges with the pitch of the main roof. Like the lower half of the main house, the lean-to's façade is built in rubble, but much of the north side has been rebuilt in brick, apparently because the window openings have been altered and enlarged. This north face now has three windows of various sizes fitted with modern multi-pane timber frames. To the right of these windows is a timber-sheeted door. The short east face of the lean-to has a small two-pane window, with a similar window on the west face. A Velux window has been inserted to the rear.

All sections of the tiled mansard roof have a slight overhang with exposed rafter ends. Some tiles appear to have discoloured. The ridge tiles are greyish in colour with decorative finials at the ridge ends; the porch ridge tiles are similar but feature pierced decoration throughout. There is a single central granite chimney stack with a sandstone panel to the front bearing the monogram of the Earl of Roden, topped with assorted pots. Cast iron rainwater goods are fitted throughout. A timber fence encloses the surrounding garden. The timber gate screen to the drive — comprising carved piers, a simple gate, and a matching pedestrian entrance — is a later replica of the original.

The property was built in 1876 for the 4th Earl of Roden and continued to be occupied after the Roden estate was sold to the state. It fell derelict between approximately 1993 and 1998 and is now occasionally let as a holiday home.

Tollymore Park has a long and significant history. In the late medieval period the land was held by the Magennis family of Upper Iveagh. In 1611 Brian MacHugh Magennis received royal confirmation of his ownership when King James I granted him seven and a half townlands including what is now the park. The estate remained in the Magennis male line until around 1685, when Bernard Magennis died childless and it passed to his sister Ellen, who was married to William Hamilton. On Ellen's death the estate passed to their son James, and his son — also James, who inherited in 1701 — was created Viscount Limerick in 1719 and Earl of Clanbrassil in 1728. This James, popularly known as Lord Limerick, began transforming Tollymore into a naturalistic landscape demesne around 1720 by enclosing much of the land as a deer park, undertaking large-scale tree planting, and building a hunting lodge and the Old Bridge. He also rebuilt the parish church at Bryansford, the small estate village to the north of the park, which took its name from his ancestor Brian Magennis.

Around 1750 Lord Limerick began construction of a larger house, probably with advice from his friend the English architect Thomas Wright, who visited Ireland in 1746–47 and stayed at Tollymore Park in September 1746. Dr Pococke, writing in his Tour of Ireland of 1752, noted that his lordship had completed two rooms of his new 'pretty lodge' by that date and had also built 'a thatch'd open place to dine in' on the south side of the Shimna River. The Clanbrassil Barn was added just to the north of the house in 1757, and the Horn Bridge was built to the south around the same time. Lord Limerick died in 1758 and was succeeded by his son, also named James, who extended the house and continued the planting. In the 1780s he erected the Barbican Gate at the eastern entrance to the park, the gothick gate at the Bryansford entrance, the hermitage, gothick follies, and a steward's lodge on the Hilltown Road, along with a number of bridges within the park including Ivy Bridge, Parnell's Bridge, and Foley's Bridge — the last named after his wife Grace Foley. These additions, which also appear to have been influenced by Thomas Wright, together with the planting, made Tollymore one of the most admired estates in Ireland. Bernard Scalé's map of 1777 records the picturesque character of the park at this period, showing a rolling landscape with extensive planting, meadows, rivers, streams, and woodland walks. An advertisement in the Belfast News-Letter of 26 April 1785 offering lodgings in Bryansford village praised the 'most pleasing prospect of the Right Hon. Earl of Clanbrassil's much admired demesne, which is beautiful to the sight and extensive to the bounds', and noted that the wholesome air and herbage on which the goats fed made it 'much frequented by ladies and gentlemen for the recovery of lost health'.

James, 2nd Viscount Limerick and 2nd Earl of Clanbrassil, died without issue in 1798, and the park passed to his sister Anne, wife of Robert Jocelyn, 1st Earl of Roden. Their son Robert, 2nd Earl of Roden, inherited the estate in 1802 and built the Bryansford and Barbican gate lodges, the latter now demolished. He also erected an obelisk monument to the east of the house in memory of his second son James, who died prematurely in 1812. The 2nd Earl and his successor, the 3rd Earl Robert, further developed Bryansford itself. A Roman Catholic church was built at the eastern edge of the village in 1820, school houses in 1823 and 1826, and labourers' dwellings and the large dower house known as The Nest were added around the same time. The 3rd Earl also constructed a water-powered sawmill within the demesne, added another small lodge to the east in 1865, and enlarged Tollymore House by adding an additional storey to the wings and a tall French château-style roof to the original central block, the latter considered somewhat incongruous in character.

Tollymore Park remained solely in the hands of the Roden family until 1930, when the 8th Earl sold two-thirds of the land to the Ministry of Agriculture for afforestation. The remaining third was purchased by the Ministry in 1940, and during the Second World War Tollymore House and part of the grounds were used by the Army. After the war the house fell into disrepair and was demolished by Lord Roden in 1952. In 1955 Tollymore became the first state forest in Ireland to be designated a Forest Park and was opened to the public. Though the main house has gone, most of the park's 18th and early 19th century gates, bridges, and lodges have survived.