Gatehouse

“ The ancient features of the building, the noble gateway, the quadrangle, the common refectory, the cloister, and, rising above all, the lofty and massive pile of the venerable church, the uniform garb and reverend mien of the aged brethren, the common provision for their declining years, the dole at the gatehouse, all lead back our thoughts to days when men gave their best to God's honour, and looked on what was done to His poor as done to Himself, and were as lavish of architectural beauty on what modern habits might deem a receptacle for beggars, as on the noblest of royal palaces. ”

“ On the continent of Europe the gatehouse forms a much more important building, as it formed part of the town fortifications, where it sometimes defended the passage of a bridge across the stream or moat. ”

“ The court, rectangular, or nearly so, the absence of a keep, the drum-towers capping the four angles, the general character of the gatehouse and its position in the centre of one side, and the domestic buildings placed against the wall of the inner court, are peculiarities common to both. In each also the gatehouse is the grand feature of the building. Further, there is to be observed in both the excessive narrowness of the middle ward, its revetment rendering more than a parapet unnecessary, its slender and subordinate gatehouse, and its lateral postern opening direct through both wards. ”

“ To the south there is more to be seen. The inner gatehouse indeed is ruined, and nothing is visible above the rubbish save the outline of the western jamb, which shows a portcullis groove and rebate for folding-gates.
The outer gatehouse and its barbican form a very remarkable work. This barbican is, as has been stated, an expansion of the bank which surrounds the inner ditch. It is here above 80 feet broad, and long enough to cover completely the southern front of the place. The gatehouse, like that behind it, is much nearer to the east than to the west end of the work. ”

“ There remains to be described the gatehouse, or entrance to this inner ward,—a very curious structure, of unusual length, and of three periods. First, approaching from the outside are two parallel walls, 5 feet thick and 9 feet apart, from within the ends of which hung the drawbridge, apparently without any special arch or gateway. In one wall is a squint loop, commanding the approach from the great gateway of the outer ward. ”

“ The Gatehouse is approached from the middle ward by a bridge over the ditch, of which the inner end was broken by a drawbridge, flanked by walls with loops. The gateway has a low-pointed arch, on a tablet above which are the arms of Elizabeth and those of Sir Henry Sydney, with the date 1581. As the curtain is 7 feet thick, and bonded into the keep, it is evidently original, and the door fittings are an insertion. There is no portcullis. The entrance door opened into a passage, having the porter’s prison and the entrance to the keep on the left, and on the right the gatehouse chambers. ”

“ Gasson, a village in the parish of Blechingley, in Surry, at the source of the river Medway.
Gatehouse, Tothill street, Westminster, is so called from two gates, erected there in the reign of Edward III. Here is a prison for debtors and criminals. ”

“ The mixture of the stonework and the black-and-white work of the house is effective, and the small court, with its formal paved walks leading from the gatehouse to the porch, and from one side doorway to the [83] other, is full of interest; especially as the house lies amid the chimneys of a busy part of Lancashire, and is surrounded by the abomination of desolation which accompanies the spread of populous places. The initials G. R. occur in the topmost step of the coping, and the date 1631 on the lintel of the doorway.
60.—Gateway to Almshouses, Oundle, Northamptonshire. ”

“ Open Arcade.
16. Gatehouse.
Let us, however, turn from these speculations to the drawings which compose the great bulk of the book—namely, the plans and (in some cases) elevations which show what kind of building an English house was intended to be, and which ought to be [231] compared with the examples already given in Chapter III. The type of plan made familiar in those examples is the type on which nine-tenths of Thorpe's plans are based. The hall is the centre of household life, the parlour and family rooms are at one end of it, the kitchen and servants' rooms are at the other. ”

“ Oftentimes he is unable to speak any English, wears a short coat in contradistinction to the boy's long one, and while ranking below the boy is considerably above the other coolies as having better pay, pleasanter work and holding a position of trust.
At the chief entrance to most residences is a gatehouse, tenanted during the day by an old man who serves as gatekeeper, and who is responsible for keeping bad characters off the premises as well as for not allowing anything to be taken away. ”

“ The circular or inner ward is much higher, either naturally or artificially, than the exterior ground. It is enclosed within a strong and lofty curtain-wall, 8 feet thick, upon which are two gatehouses and a drum-tower, and against it the hall, chapel, and other domestic buildings. The interior is an open, irregular, but on the whole four-sided court, about 60 yards in the side.
The principal gatehouse is to the east, and opens upon the churchyard, which forms the counterscarp of the ditch. It is quadrangular, 20 feet broad by 24 feet deep, of which 16 feet project beyond the curtain. ”

“ Most people have felt the ennui of being detained under a gateway in a shower of rain. Happy is he who has an umbrella, and can escape when the first fury of the storm has abated. Turn this gateway into a broker’s shop, full of second-hand furniture—tables, chairs, bedsteads, bolsters, and all the accommodations of man’s life,—the case will not be mended. On the other hand, convert it into a wild natural cave, and we may idle away whole hours in it, marking a streak in the rock, or a flower that grows on the sides, without feeling time hang heavy on us. ”

“ It is so like a real gateway that it calls up the thought of a real gateway, and leaves us a little disappointed at finding that the building, after all, never was of any use to anybody, and was set up simply to be looked at. ”

“ A path, from its breadth quite a street, leads up to the arched gateway; but we found a board, giving notice that these are private grounds, and no strangers admitted; so that we only passed through the gate a few steps, and looked about us, and retired, on perceiving a man approaching us through the trees and shrubbery. A private individual, it seems, has burrowed in this old warlike den, and turned the keep, and any other available apartment, into a modern dwelling, and laid out his pleasure-grounds within the precincts of the castle wall, which allows verge enough for the purpose. ”

“ The poor soul quickens her pace; is swift, and close upon him entering under the gateway; but only sees a postern staircase on one side of it, and on the other side an ancient vaulted room, in which a large-headed, gray-haired gentleman is writing, under the odd circumstances of sitting open to the thoroughfare and eyeing all who pass, as if he were toll-taker of the gateway: though the way is free. ”

“ For he who passes the gateways always wins a shadow, and never again can he be alone. I had evoked—and the book was indeed all I had suspected. That night I passed the gateway to a vortex of twisted time and vision, and when morning found me in the attic room I saw in the walls and shelves and fittings that which I had never seen before. ”

“ Here we left our horses. Entering the gateway we walked across the gardens, the guard unceremoniously clearing out of our way the clerks, pages, and petitioners who were walking along the paths. We saw in front of us the ramparts, moat, and bridges of the Palace. The flame-shaped battlements of the walls, and the decorated gateway set in a semicircular recess flanked by bastions, had a quaint Oriental appearance.
On the wall over the gateway was a small cupola sheltering what appeared to be a telescope, but may have been a machine gun. ”

“ And after the gate had been closed behind one, it was difficult to realise that within a few yards of an academic system of lawns and buildings full of living traditions and associations which wainscoting and winding stairs engender, lay the modern world, its American invaders, its new humour, its women's clubs, its long firms, its musical comedies, its Park Lane, and its Strand with the hub of the universe projecting from the roadway at Charing Cross, plain for Englishmen to gloat over and for foreigners to envy. ”

“ Ah, when that creaking and sagging back gate closed behind me in the evening, I was happy; and when it opened for my egress thence in the morning, I was not happy. Inside that gate was a miniature farm redolent of homely, primitive life, a tumble-down house and stables and implements of agriculture and horticulture, broods of chickens, and growing pumpkins, and a thousand antidotes to the weariness of an artificial life. Outside of it were the marble and iron palaces, the paved and blistering streets, and the high, vacant, mahogany desk of a government clerk. ”

“ Here in the roofless halls we can be taken from entrance to dining-hall, from atrium to sleeping rooms, spying into the minutest detail of shape, size and colour, as though we were seriously intending to rent the house for our own habitation. The last tenant has even left his money-chest in his hall, his pots and pans in the kitchen, and as we inspect his utensils, we wonder if they would suit our own requirements to-day. ”

“ Now that gateway is small and mean, and only those acquainted with this street know that there is a passage through it to the thoroughfare where the cloth-merchants live; where every man is rich and keeps a pile of melons behind his wares for the entertainment of visitors. ”

“ The Gate House is in excellent preservation, and is occupied by a tenant of the Earl of Clarendon. The towers are supported by old pear trees that clasp their long arms around the stone-work and hug it so tightly that you may see their impress in the wall. It is a pleasant sight, which a poet might make something of, to see them hanging their clusters of luscious fruit up and down, as if, like the idea expressed in Solomon's Song, they were staying the venerable building with apples and cheering delicacies. ”

“ Would each of the vested interests—gardener, gatekeeper, housekeeper, and butler—submit to see their long-established perquisites suddenly effaced and extinguished? Would the village folk be content to lose the profits of strangers, who each year flocked down in increasing hordes? Would the tourists themselves, who had carried their romantic sympathies hundreds of miles by land or sea, agree to put up with a glance at the cottage chimneys by telescope, or a peep through the iron gate at the trim avenue, whose abrupt turning shut out all further inspection? ”

“ The noble gateway leads now, not from courtyard to hall, but doorless, with its massive stones wrenched apart by clinging ivy, stands merely as some sort of key to the enigma of ground plan presented by walls ruinated in greater part to the level of the watery turf. ”

“ Many families living in the same house, and at the entrance of the apartments belonging to each, a strong iron gate to separate the residence of one set from that of another, has likewise an odd melancholy look, like that of a prison or a nunnery. ”

“ Can anything be made of that pencil-stroking on buff paper, with some splashes of white, which is held to represent a cottage, flanked on one side by a gate-post which could never have been a good gate-post, and on the other side by something smeary which is not at all like a tree, nor any other created thing? ”

“ But in the Commons life gives way to mere existence and vegetation. The organ-man plays unmolested on Addle Hill, and the children's shuttlecocks flutter in Wardrobe Place; no Pickford's vans disturb the calm serenity of Great Knightrider Street; and instead of warehouses and offices, there are quaint old dumpy congregationless churches, big rambling old halls of City Companies, the forgotten old Heralds' College with its purposeless traditions, a few apparently nothing-doing shops, a number of proctors' offices into which man is never seen to enter, and two or three refreshment-rooms. ”

“ Finding our quarters, besides being too remote from business centers for my husband’s convenience, were rather cramped, as we were limited to two rooms, and without an out-building that could serve for a kitchen, another house-hunt was instituted, and eventually we succeeded in making ourselves very comfortable in comparison with the rough life that had been ours whenever we had previously been on the frontier. ”

“ As there are permanent residents here, and valuable merchandise and other articles stored away, there is a gate strongly bolted and barred, and often sheathed in iron, and a gate-keeper, generally to be seen sleeping or smoking, whose sole business is to prevent the entrance of improper or suspicious persons. ”

“ No; there is more safety in a large place like the Gate House, where plenty of guests are coming and going continually, than in a little bit of a public-house where we should be looked at, and scrutinised from top to toe, from the moment we went in to the moment we came out. ”

“ Snitchey and Craggs stood convenient, with an open door down two smooth steps, in the market-place; so that any angry farmer inclining towards hot water, might tumble into it at once. Their special council-chamber and hall of conference was an old back-room up-stairs, with a low dark ceiling, which seemed to be knitting its brows gloomily in the consideration of tangled points of law. ”

“ This gateway is no doubt extremely grand and beautiful; but what strikes one most is the disproportion between the thing wanted and the thing provided—there seems to be something quite preposterous in forming so enormous an entrance for a poor diminutive man to walk through—and walk he must, unless carried through on men's shoulders; for neither elephant, horse, nor bullock could ascend over the flight of steps. ”