Belfort

Detached three-bay single-storey gate lodge, built 1875, on a T-shaped plan centred on single-bay single-storey projecting open porch. Restored, 2014-5. Now disused. Replacement hipped slate roof on a T-shaped plan centred on hipped slate roof on chamfered timber pillars (porch), ridge tiles, truncated central chimneystack, and cast-iron rainwater goods on timber eaves boards on rendered eaves retaining cast-iron downpipes. Rendered, ruled and lined walls. Camber- or segmental-headed central door opening in camber- or segmental-headed recess with cut-granite threshold, and concealed dressings having bull nose-detailed reveals with fittings now boarded-up. Camber- or segmental-headed flanking window openings with cut-granite sills, and concealed dressings framing protective panels over timber casement windows. Set perpendicular to road at entrance to grounds of Belfort.

A gate lodge erected by Graves Swan Warren (1822-1907) contributing positively to the group and setting values of the Belfort estate with the architectural value of the composition, one succeeding a gate lodge previously forming part of the Mel Field estate, suggested by such attributes as the compact plan form centred on a pillared porch. Having been sympathetically restored following a prolonged period of unoccupancy, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, thus upholding the character or integrity of a gate lodge making a pleasing, if largely inconspicuous visual statement in Newtownpark Avenue (cf. 60230092).