East Gate Lodge, 176 Tullybrannigan Road, Tollymore Park, Newcastle, Co Down, BT33 0PW

East Gate Lodge is a simple one-and-a-half-storey, rubble-built gabled gate lodge, dated 1865, constructed to serve the east entrance to the former Tollymore Park estate. It sits at the end of a lane to the west of Tullybrannigan Road, half a kilometre west of Newcastle town, and fronts the east entrance to Tollymore Park. The property was renovated in 1999 and now appears to serve as a holiday home.

The front (north) façade is symmetrical. At its centre is a small gabled porch containing a plain sheeted stable door, the upper portion of which has a small glazed panel. Directly above the door is a recessed plaque in the form of a shamrock trefoil, inscribed "A.D. 1865". The trefoil is formed in brick to its upper portions and stone to the lower. The porch roof verge overhangs slightly. To either side of the door is a small window opening, each covered with a timber sheeted shutter bearing a small shamrock motif.

The east gable has one wide ground-floor window opening, shuttered in the same manner, and one single-pane window to the first floor. The west gable matches this arrangement, with one shuttered ground-floor window and one first-floor window. To the right side of the building is a small extension, the north face of which has a plain sheeted timber door. The south façade has two shuttered windows to the right, while to the left the small extension overlaps the main face; the south face of the extension has three modern PVC windows.

All corners of the original building have dressed quoins. The ground-floor windows are dressed with brick and may have been enlarged at some point. The gabled roof is covered in natural slate and has two small rendered chimney stacks positioned centrally towards the rear. There is also a side and rear return.

The lodge was built in 1865 by the 3rd Earl of Roden to serve the east gate of his Tollymore Park estate. In the second half of the 20th century it was given to the Forest Service by a local resident and used as a store, before being renovated in 1999.

The history of the wider Tollymore Park estate is extensive. In the late medieval period, Tollymore and the surrounding townlands were under the lordship of 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 the land now forming the park. The estate remained in the Magennis male line until around 1685, when Bernard Magennis died childless and the estate passed to his sister Ellen, who was married to William Hamilton. On her death it passed to their son James, whose own son James — inheriting in 1701 — was created Viscount Limerick in 1719 and Earl of Clanbrassil (second creation) in 1728.

This James, popularly remembered as Lord Limerick, began developing Tollymore as a naturalistic landscape demesne around 1720. He enclosed much of the land to form a deer park, undertook large-scale tree planting, and built 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, named after his ancestor Brian Magennis. Around 1750 he began constructing a larger house, probably taking design 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, in his Tour of Ireland of 1752, noted that Lord Limerick 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. Just to the north of the house, the Clanbrassil Barn was added in 1757, with the Horn Bridge 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 new house and continued his father's tree planting. During the 1780s he erected the Barbican Gate at the eastern entrance to the park, the Gothic gate at the Bryansford entrance, the hermitage, Gothic follies, and a steward's lodge on the Hilltown Road, together 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 attractive estates in Ireland. Bernard Scalé's 1777 map of the park gives a sense of its picturesque character during this period, depicting a rolling landscape with extensive planting, meadows, rivers, streams, and woodland walks. An advertisement in the Belfast News-Letter of 26 April 1785 offered lodgings in Bryansford village, making much of 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 of the wholesome air and herbage on which goats fed, making it popular with "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, who inherited in 1802, built the Bryansford and Barbican gate lodges — the latter now demolished — and 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, further developed Bryansford itself, making it "a pleasing place of residence for those persons that like a quiet retreat". 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 built around the same time. The 3rd Earl also constructed a water-powered sawmill within the demesne and, in 1865, added the East Gate Lodge. He further enlarged Tollymore House by adding an additional storey to the wings and a tall, somewhat incongruous, French château-style roof to the original central block.

Tollymore Park remained in Roden family ownership until 1930, when the 8th Earl sold two thirds of the land to the Ministry of Agriculture for afforestation. The remaining third was bought 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. It has continued to be developed for timber production, recreation, conservation, and education. Although the main house has gone, most of the park's 18th and early 19th century gates, bridges, and lodges have survived.