Gatehouse

This article is about fortified or decorative gate structures. For other uses, see Gatehouse (disambiguation).

The southern entrance to York, Micklegate Bar

A gatehouse is a type of fortified gateway, an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the most heavily armed section of a fortification, to compensate for being structurally the weakest and the most probable attack point by an enemy. There are numerous surviving examples in France, Austria, Germany, England, and Japan.

History

Gatehouses made their first appearance in the early antiquity, when it became necessary to protect the main entrance to a castle or town. Famous early examples of such gates are those such as the Ishtar Gate in Babylon. Over time, they evolved into very complicated structures with many lines of defence. The Romans began building fortified walls and structures throughout Europe, such as the Aurelian Walls of Rome with gates such as Porta San Paolo and Porta Nigra from the ancient defences of Trier in Germany. Strongly fortified gatehouses would normally include a drawbridge, one or more portcullises, machicolations, arrow loops and possibly even murder-holes where stones would be dropped on attackers. In some castles, the gatehouse was so strongly fortified it took on the function of a keep, sometimes referred to as a "gatehouse keep". In the late Middle Ages, some of these arrow loops might have been converted into gun loops (or gun ports).

Urban defences would sometimes incorporate gatehouses, such as Monnow Bridge in Monmouth. York has four important gatehouses, known as "Bars", in its city walls including the Micklegate Bar.

The French term for gatehouse is logis-porche. This could be a large, complex structure that served both as a gateway and lodging or it could have been composed of a gateway through an enclosing wall. A very large gatehouse might be called a châtelet (small castle).

At the end of the Middle Ages, many gatehouses in England and France were converted into beautiful, grand entrance structures to manor houses or estates. Many of them became a separate feature, free-standing or attached to the manor or mansion only by an enclosing wall. By this time, the gatehouse had lost its defensive purpose and had become more of a monumental structure designed to harmonise with the manor or mansion.

Examples

England

• Balkerne Gate, Colchester, a surviving Roman city gate
• Dover Castle, Kent, the Constable's Gate is the largest surviving gatehouse in England
• Durham Castle, in Durham has an 11th-century gatehouse that is now used as accommodation for students attending University College, Durham.
• Layer Marney Tower, the epitome of the Tudor gatehouse.
• Stokesay Castle, a 13th-century fortified manor house in Shropshire has a Jacobean half-timbered gatehouse.
• Stanway House, Stanway, Gloucestershire, where the gatehouse measures 44 ft. by 22 ft. and has three storeys.
• Westwood House, Worcestershire, which has a frontage of 54 ft. with two storeys.
• Burton Agnes Hall, East Riding of Yorkshire, which has three storeys and is flanked by great octagonal towers at the angles.
• Hylton Castle, Hylton, Sunderland, a combination of gatehouse and tower house
• Bargate, Southampton. Constructed in 1180 as part of the Southampton town walls
• Tonbridge Castle, Kent, the first surviving gatehouse-keep
• Westgate, Canterbury, designed by Henry Yevele
• Westgate and Kingsgate, Winchester, the latter with a church above
• Several gates, all originally in the form of a single tower with barbican, survive in York city walls, including Bootham Bar, Micklegate Bar, Monk Bar and Walmgate Bar.

France

• Château de Châteaubriant, two gatehouses (13th and 14th century), one for the lower bailey, one for the upper ward.
• Château de Suscinio, a large 15th-century gatehouse in the logis-porte style, Morbihan, Brittany.
• Château de Trécesson, a simple 14th-century gatehouse on a moated manor house in Morbihan, Brittany (see French Wikipedia page, Château de Trécesson)
• Château de Vitré, a large 15th-century châtelet or gatehouse in Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany

Germany

In German, "gatehouse" is Torburg (lit. "Gate castle").

• Kasselburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, a tall twin-towered gatehouse.
• Porta Nigra, Trier, a Roman city gate converted to a church in the Middle Ages

Russia

• Golden Gate, Vladimir

Spain

• Puerta del Sol, Toledo

Ukraine

• Golden Gate, Kyiv

United States

• Latrobe Gate, a Greek Revival and Italianate gatehouse built in 1806, Washington, D.C.
• Lorraine Park Cemetery Gate Lodge, a Queen Anne style stone and frame building constructed in 1884, Woodlawn, Baltimore County, Maryland.

Wales

The gatehouse-keep was greatly used in the Welsh castles of Edward I.

• Beaumaris Castle has two incomplete gatehouse-keeps.
• Caernarfon Castle has two large gatehouses, both unfinished: King's Gate and Queen's Gate.
• Caerphilly Castle has two gatehouse-keeps (one rebuilt in the 20th century) and five smaller gatehouses.
• Harlech Castle has a gatehouse-keep with an outer gatehouse in front.
• Monnow Bridge, Monmouth, a fortified bridge

Gallery

• 
  The Ishtar Gate, Babylon
• 
  The Beulé Gate to the Acropolis, Athens
• 
  The Porta Nigra, Trier
• 
  The gatehouse of Lorsch Abbey, Germany
• 
  The Golden Gate of Kyiv
• 
  Horseshoe-shaped Puerta del Sol, Toledo
• 
  Single-towered gatehouse of Prudhoe Castle, with barbican and chapel over the passage
• 
  Early twin-towered gatehouse at Dover Castle: the Palace Gate, formerly with a barbican.
• 
  Exterior of gatehouse-keep at Tonbridge Castle
• 
  Interior of gatehouse-keep at Harlech Castle (1283-89)
• 
  Tudor display gatehouse at Layer Marney Tower
• 
  Timber-framed vernacular gatehouse in Ober-Bessingen, Lich, Germany
• 
  Ganesh Pol, one of seven gates of the Amber Fort, India
• 
  Kankaimon, the outer gatehouse of Shuri Castle, Japan
• 
  The 19th century Barbican Gate, Glenarm Castle, Northern Ireland

See also

• City gate
• Gate tower
• Guardhouse
• Gatekeeper's lodge
• Pend