The Lion's Gate, Preston Hall

The Lion's Gate, Preston Hall

This pair of single-storey classical lodges was designed by Robert Mitchell around 1795. They are square-plan buildings constructed in dressed ashlar with base and eaves courses, positioned at the formal entrance to Preston Hall, straddling the drive that winds along a wooded slope above the Tyne Water.

Each lodge is fronted on its principal (south) elevation by a recessed blind archway to the centre containing an architraved pedimented window, with a string course and eaves course beneath a low parapet. The western lodge has a balustraded screen wall adjoining a square pier with circular motif and cushion cap to its left. To the right stands a wrought-iron pedestrian gate of spider's web pattern with spikes, set within a pair of Tuscan columns and surmounted by a pediment bearing a recumbent Coade stone lion. Between the two lodges, a rusticated square pier with neck course and cushion capital supports a wrought-iron lamp bracket and a double wrought-iron gate of web pattern. The eastern lodge mirrors the western lodge in plan and elevation, though its recumbent lion is missing its front right paw and ball.

On their east and west (drive-facing) elevations, the main buildings each feature a single window or doorway to the centre with projecting base sill and eaves course with low parapet. Lower recessed cubes adjoin each lodge, containing central doors with tooled margins, eaves courses, low parapets, and gable ends with plain skewputts to the right return.

The roofs are piended grey slate with zinc ridging and concealed rainwater goods. Chimneys survive to the left of the main building on the western lodge and in replacement form on the eastern lodge, though the eastern lodge is missing its chimney cans. The original 12-pane timber sash and case windows are now concealed behind timber sheeting. The rear (north) elevation was not inspected during the 2001 survey.

The lodges form part of a group listing with Preston Hall, the Stables, Gazebos, Walled Garden and Temple. The ornamental lions are made from Coade stone, one of the earliest mass-produced artificial stones, named after its manufacturer Mrs Eleanor Coade. The name "Lion's Gate" derives from these two lions which surmount the pillars, though it may also reference Sir Walter Scott's "Marmion", in which the poet introduces Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, Lord Lion King of Arms for Scotland, as guide at this location. This site holds further historical significance as the place where the Duchess of Gordon, then owner of Preston Hall, had breakfast prepared for Prince Charles Stuart in 1745, an act for which she forfeited the £1000 annual pension she had been granted by the Exchequer for raising her family as Protestants.