Survey Data
Reg No
15305001
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Previous Name
Ralphsdale House
Original Use
Gates/railings/walls
In Use As
Gates/railings/walls
Date
1840 - 1860
Coordinates
254297, 265773
Date Recorded
01/07/2004
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Gateway, erected c.1850, comprising a pair of cast-iron gate posts and wrought-iron double gates, flanked by wrought-iron looped railings over ashlar limestone plinth wall. Ashlar piers on square-plan with pyramidal-shaped coping and short sections of curved ashlar screen walls to either end. Road fronted at entrance to grounds of Glananea with gate lodge to west.
Appraisal
An understated but elegant gateway which forms an attractive feature in the landscape. The fine detailing to the gates and railings enhances the artistic design quality of the composition, while the ashlar stone work to the terminating piers and screen walls is indicative of high quality stone masonry. The combination of both wrought-iron and cast-iron elements is also of artistic interest. This gate replaced an earlier, much more elaborate late eighteenth-century gateway on the same site which was moved from Glananea to Rosmead House (near Delvin) in the mid nineteenth-century (Lewis' notes the original gates in his 'Topographical Dictionary' in 1837, indicating that these were still insitu at this date) after the owner of the time, Ralph Smyth, got tired of been known locally as 'Smyth with the gates'. However, this plan back-fired and from that date he was known as 'Smyth without the gates'. These gates form part of an important collection of demesne-related structures within the Glananea estate.