Gate lodge at Tobar Mhuire, 16 Downpatrick Road, Crossgar, Co Down, BT30 9EQ

Gate Lodge at Tobar Mhuire

This is a single-storey gate lodge built in 1875 by John Cleland, positioned at the western entrance to the Tobar Mhuire house estate on the southern edge of Crossgar. It stands as a replacement for an earlier pre-1834 lodge sited further north at the original drive entrance, which remained standing until at least 1932.

The lodge features a hipped roof with natural slate covering and a symmetrical south-facing front façade. The principal element is a projecting gabled porch at the centre, topped with an eagle finial at the apex and clay urn finials to either end of the stone parapet. The porch gable contains the main entrance—a panelled and glazed door set within a yellow brick dressed recess with moulded reveal. A recessed slate roundel panel above the doorway bears the date '1875'. The porch is flanked by narrow sash windows to its east and west faces. The porch has yellow clay vermiculated quoins, a granite base and steps.

The main body of the lodge is constructed of rubble with yellow brick dressings and vermiculated clay quoins matching those of the porch, together with a similar granite base. To either side of the porch on the main front façade are sash windows with vertical astragals. The roof is supported on clay corbels and features slight overhang. Two central yellow brick chimney stacks rise through the hipped roof.

To the rear, the lodge incorporates a return section within an enclosed yard, containing a central timber-sheeted door with red brick dressings and red brick quoins to the yard's north wall. The return has a mono-pitched roof. The east façade of the return facing into the yard is plain rendered with a glazed door and large modern window. The rear façade of the main portion, also facing the yard, is plain rendered with two large modern windows. The slate-clad portion of the return roof rises slightly above the main rubble façade.

The building may originally have been constructed without the rear return, with simply an enclosed yard. The return is indicated on the 1921 Ordnance Survey map. In recent times, around the 1980s–90s, the building underwent complete internal renovation and the return appears to have been slightly extended, accounting for the modern windows and heightened roof.

A gate screen dating from circa 1950s stands immediately to the southwest of the lodge, featuring simple gates and railings with ecclesiastically-inspired gate pillars.

Tobar Mhuire House itself was built in 1864 by James Cleland on the site of the earlier Crossgar House, a low sprawling residence of one-and-a-half to two storeys probably erected around the 1780s by then landlord Edward Ruthven. Ruthven sold Crossgar to William Thompson, a Downpatrick merchant, during the 1820s; Thompson developed the village and built the market house but does not appear to have lived at Crossgar House itself, which was occupied by a Mrs Hamilton in 1835 and by Reverend Maguire in 1845. When Thompson died in 1862, Crossgar passed to his nephew James Cleland, who immediately demolished the old house and erected the present residence. Cleland named it after a well to the southwest of the building, locally called 'Mary's Well' or 'Tobar Mhuire'. Either James Cleland or his son John, who inherited the estate upon his father's death in 1875, redirected the main drive further south and added this new gate lodge. The walled garden to the northeast was laid out at the same period. The Clelands remained at Tobar Mhuire until circa 1930, when William McCalla, a Belfast shipping agent, acquired the house. Between 1942 and 1945 Allied troops occupied it. After the war it was sold to Mr McDowell of Downpatrick, who shortly afterwards sold it to Lieutenant Colonel Llewellen Palmer. In 1950 Palmer sold it to The Passionist Order for use as a monastery and retreat house.