The structure at Dromhumper is unusual not just for its shape, which shifts from an octagonal upper storey to a square basement, but for the deliberate theatrical effect of its surface. The walls are random rubble and brick underneath, yet the render has been incised with lines to suggest cut ashlar stonework, that is, the smooth, precisely dressed blocks associated with more substantial architecture. It is a lodge performing as a miniature castle, and doing so with some conviction.

The building sits on the north side of a road, pressed into a steep slope with views down to the River Flesk below. Its pointed door opening, flanked by rectangular windows and topped by a first-floor window, follows a Gothic Revival sensibility, with hood-mouldings over the cut limestone surrounds adding a degree of finish that the rubble construction beneath the render would not otherwise suggest. Inside, a fireplace occupies the northwest corner of the basement, and a stove flue runs through the north wall of the floor above, making clear this was a genuinely inhabited space rather than a purely ornamental gatehouse. Yard and storage structures at basement level reinforce that impression. The 1846 Ordnance Survey six-inch map names it plainly as Gate Lodge, positioned along the avenue leading to Flesk Castle, which lies roughly 300 metres to the southeast. The lodge, in other words, was the threshold marker for a more substantial property, its architectural pretensions carefully calibrated to announce what lay beyond.