Virginia Park Lodge

Detached three-bay single-storey former gate lodge, built c.1820, with flat-roofed extension to south and lean-to extension to north side. Now in use as office. Pitched slate roof, three red brick chimneystacks to ridge with square-profile bases, octagonal tops, and sandstone dressings. Overhanging timber eaves and foil-motif bargeboards to both gables with iron ridge cresting and cast-iron rainwater goods. Roughcast rendered walls with smooth rendered plinth. Tripartite lattice windows to east gable, single lattice windows to south elevation, timber sheeted door to southern and northern extensions. Entrance to east with random squared stone splayed setback walls with stone saddle copings. Square-profile ashlar piers with stepped recessed panel facing road, profiled base and cornice with pyramidal capstone and metal lamps. Gates no longer extant.

This former lodge, probably designed by Alexander McLeish, announced the entrance from the public road to the demesne of the hunting and fishing lodge of the Marquess of Headfort. The decorative chimneys and windows add a romantic quality to the building which is befitting of a landed estate in the English landscape manner. While the scale of the building is small, the craftsmanship of the finish is to a high standard, displaying local skills, and uniting the gate lodge with other buildings on the estate in motifs and materials. It forms part of a consciously planned spatial relationship between the entrance drive to Virginia Park Lodge and the Church of Ireland church, the tower and gates of which have been positioned directly opposite the demesne entrance.