Creagh House

Detached two-bay single-storey gate lodge with half-dormer attic, extant 1894, on an L-shaped plan with single-bay full-height gabled projecting end bay. Renovated, 1998, to accommodate continued private residential use. Pitched slate roof on an L-shaped plan with roll moulded clay ridge tiles, red brick Running bond chimney stack on rendered base having shallow concrete capping supporting crested terracotta pots, scallop-detailed timber bargeboards to gables on timber purlins with timber finials to apexes, and replacement uPVC rainwater goods on timber eaves boards on exposed timber rafters. Part creeper- or ivy-covered rendered walls on rendered chamfered plinth with red brick Running bond flush stringcourses. Triangular-headed window openings including paired triangular-headed window openings (ground floor) with cut-limestone sills, and red brick block-and-start surrounds framing one-over-one timber sash windows. Set back from line of road at entrance to grounds of Creagh House with wrought iron "estate railings" to perimeter.

A gate lodge not only contributing positively to the group and setting values of the much diminished Creagh House estate, but also defining the extent of the estate at the turn of the twentieth century with the architectural value of the composition suggested by such attributes as the compact plan form; the "pointed" profile of the openings underpinning a "picturesque" theme in contrast to the Italianate Classicism of the country house (see 31311708); and the decorative timber work embellishing the roofline. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, thereby upholding the character or integrity of a gate lodge forming part of a neat self-contained group alongside an adjacent gateway (see 31311803) with the resulting ensemble making a pleasing visual statement in a sylvan street scene.