Drum Gatelodge

A unique two-storey gate lodge with a round tower, built in 1800 at the end of an old beech avenue just outside Bushmills in Co. Antrim. Drum Gatelodge sits on a quiet country road at the western edge of the Ballylough Estate, with farm fields on three sides and the odd flock of sheep. The front porch looks onto a field where Rosie and Snickers, the two resident donkeys, wander over to meet every arrival. Lizzie Taggart, the estate’s hen girl, moved in in 1898. Her grandson Robbie was the last to live here, leaving in 1962, and the lodge then stood empty for forty years until it was lovingly restored it in 2003, adding a small kitchen, a bathroom with a bath and shower, and a glazed walkway between them. Downstairs is the cosy round sitting room: a stove, underfloor heating, shelves of books and board games, a radio. The staircase winds up from beside the fireplace, past a bull’s eye window, to the bedroom in the tower, round, with a king-size bed and a Gothic window over the garden. Alan, who looks after the lodge, leaves carrots out for the donkeys and a basket of treats if you bring your dog. There is a two-night minimum. Bushmills, the Giant’s Causeway and the beaches of the Causeway Coast are all a few minutes away by car.