Ashtown Gate

Detached three-bay single storey red brick gate lodge, built 1839. Matching gate lodge to west, erected 1847. Cruciform-plan, abutted to rear by modern flat-roofed extensions. Pitched slate roof, hipped to north and south, with lead-lined hip and ridge tiles and leaded roof over advanced pedimented central bay. Smooth rendered chimneystacks with coping and clay pots. Solid rendered and painted parapets over moulded projecting eaves, with gutters concealed behind. Some half-round cast-iron rainwater goods. Walling is red brick laid to Flemish bond, having modern tuck-pointing, rendered and painted dressings, granite plinth and corner quoins. Square-headed window openings generally with moulded architraves, aprons to west and with voussoired brick heads to pedimented central bay. Windows are six-over-six pane timber sliding sashes, with some original glass remaining. Flat-roofed porch advances to central bay, carried on corner pilasters, with replacement timber panelled and glazed door in plain surround. Granite stone step and wrought iron bootscraper. Site bound by spear-headed cast-iron railings and gates, bitmac and gravel hard standings. Coursed and square limestone rubble perimeter wall of Phoenix Park boundary to north, with associated entrance gates and matching gate lodge to west.

A fine mid-nineteenth-century red brick neoclassical-style gate-lodge, built to designs by Decimus Burton, characterised by balanced proportions and mirrored by the gate lodge to the east, with a former constabulary barracks abutting to rear. Designed for public view and complemented by the nearby cast-iron gate screen (50060027) and matching gate lodge (50060026), the ensemble constitutes an important showpiece at one of the principal entrances into Phoenix Park and is representative of Burton’s remodelling of the park. The building retains an original aspect, despite modern additions to the rear, and the use of red brick walling is a feature which is relatively uncommon in gate lodge design from this period.