Green Gale Lodge, Mourne Park, 200 Newry Road, Killkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4JZ

Green Gale Lodge is a substantial and attractive gate lodge of late Victorian date, forming an integral part of the demesne architecture at Mourne Park. The building is sited on the entrance drive just behind the Green Gates, and together with associated gates, walls, and outbuildings, contributes to the overall composition of the estate approach.

The lodge is a one and three-quarter storey building of three bays with an advanced gabled right-hand bay. It is constructed of coarsely dressed granite blocks laid randomly, set on a projecting plinth with chamfered brick coping. Quoins are finely dressed and flush. All pointing is weather struck cement. The natural slate roof has intersecting pitches and red clay crested ridges (part missing), embellished by two bands of three courses of fish scaled slates. Eaves are overhanging with exposed decorated rafter tails over a moulded brick double corbel course. Verges project with decorative bargeboards, different in design on each gable. There are three red brick decorative chimneys: one on the party wall between the left and centre bays, one on the right bay ridge, and one on the rear end gable. Cast iron rainwater goods of semicircular profile (part missing) and matching downpipes are installed throughout.

The principal façade faces east to the driveway. The central narrow bay contains the four-panelled front entrance door with stop-end chamfered arrises and a rectangular one-pane transom over. This is protected by a decorative painted timber open porch with partly hipped natural slate roof and bracketed eaves, entered from the left side and built in the angle formed by the middle and right-hand bays. The porch stands on an advanced granite base course with chamfered brick coping. The porch opening on the left cheek is flanked by single panels; the front section comprises four panels, each in two stages. The lower stage is open in the form of an arch springing from a decorative bracket on each post; the upper stage has a decorative pierced panel. The porch interior has a painted sheeted timber ceiling, with granite threshold and red quarry tile paving.

All windows are painted timber 2/2 (vertically divided) sliding sashes unless otherwise stated. Stone lintels to openings are one piece with a stopped pole chamfer arris mould; brick reveals are similarly detailed. Flush granite cills have steeply sloping top faces. All windows have red brick dressings.

The ground floor of the principal façade contains a single window to the left. The right bay features a canted single-storey bay with flat roof bounded by moulded granite coping, containing a 2/2 sash window to centre and 1/1 windows on each cheek. At first floor, the left bay has a gabled window; the centre has a small 2/2 window over the door; the right bay has a gabled window. The gabled first floor windows have semicircular brick arch heads with one-piece dressed stone tympanum blocks. Bargeboards to the left-hand gable are plain; those to the right gable are styled as hammer beam trusses.

The south elevation is two bays wide. The right bay is wider and forms an advanced gable with bay, detailed as the right bay of the main elevation but with plain bargeboards. The left-hand bay has a 2/2 sash window on the ground floor and a similar gabled window to the first floor. Both first floor windows have semicircular brick heads as on the main façade.

The rear elevation consists of two bays, each in the form of a blank gable, with the right one advancing. A framed and sheeted back door is at the right end of the left-hand gable, with a segmental brick headed transom light. A single-storey return abutts the wall to the left of the door. The advanced cheek of the right-hand bay is blank, with the yard wall continued to the right of the right-hand gable.

The single-storey return abutting the left bay has a natural slate roof with crested clay ridges and plain bargeboards, with half-round rainwater goods. Its walls are of coursed random rubble with finely-dressed and stepped quoins, built integral with the main block. Its end gable has a shuttered window with segmental brick head, stepped brick jambs, and granite cill. Its right cheek has a door at each end with shallow brick heads and a shuttered window to centre, detailed as that on the gable. Its left cheek has a similar window just right of centre.

The north elevation is two bays wide, both gabled with hammer-beam style bargeboards. Each bay has one window to each floor, detailed as those of the main façade. The wall between the ground floor windows is abutted by a two-metre-high yard wall containing sheeted carriage gates hung on square ashlar granite piers.

To the rear is a large walled yard containing ruinous kennels to the north and a derelict outhouse to the east (detailed as the return to the main block). Against the inside face of the boundary wall to the main road is a range of carriage houses with an insitu concrete roof partly supported by pieces of cast-iron railway line. All these buildings are substantial and stone built.

Although the gate screen is shown on the 1834 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, the lodge does not appear on the 1859 edition. It is first depicted on the 1901 edition, indicating a late 19th-century construction date. The building is attributed to around 1890.