After Monday’s post about the main house at Woodbrook, County Laois, here are the the south gate lodge and gate screen into the estate. The lodge itself is a curious structure which may, or may not, have been designed by James Shiel at the same time as he was coming up with proposals for the house. The facade is dominated by an substantial ashlar pediment with window beneath, the latter flanked by deep recesses, one of which has a door into the building. So generous are the recesses that the pediment has to be supported by a pair of slender iron columns. The gate screen itself, of limestone ashlar and wrought iron, is more standardised with its piers, quadrant walls and arched niches in the outer sections. Here also is an old milestone advising that Dublin lies 47 miles distant.
The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by
Very strange proportions, the pediment looks so dominant. It almost looks as if the architect intended the recesses to be screened with something like trellis, in the way many verandas of that date were. If only the design drawings had survived!
The strangeness is compounded by the ‘improvements’ since 2003.
The decorative barge board is new as are the ubiquitous bird box ends.