Lancaster Gatehouse - The Gatehouse Revealed Fig. 1. Gatehouse from the south (west). It is over 20 metres (65 ft) in height. out and machicolations of large size are left The Lancaster Castle Gatehouse between them and the wall. In a corner of each The gatehouse is not well documented. Writ- of the flanking towers rises a turret, the interi- ing in 1912, A Hamilton Thompson noted or of which apparently served as a magazine (Military Architecture in England in the Mid- for ammunition. The interior of this gatehouse, dle Ages, p. 327) that Lancaster was ‘one of although the space is ample, is fully in keeping the greatest of English gatehouses (fig. 1) It with its sombre exterior. Each of the two upper was known to have been built as late as about floors contains three rooms, one in the central 1405, for the arms of Henry V, as Prince of block of the gatehouse, the others in the towers Wales, appear on a shield above the gateway. at the sides. These rooms are large and lofty It is therefore one of the latest military works and their wooden ceilings still retain traces of in the castles of the duchy and the last of a colour; but they are gloomy and ill-lighted to series of gatehouses which owed their origin the last degree. The apartments on the first to lords of the house of Lancaster, and in- floor communicate directly with one another, cludes the noble structures at Dunstanburgh, but those on the second floor are entered from Tutbury and Knaresborough …. Flanked by an outer passage which passes between them two huge octagonal towers, this gatehouse is and the inner, or west wall of the gatehouse. the perfection of the type which is seen at The guardrooms on the ground floor are ap- Bothal and within the keep at Alnwick. The proached in the usual way by doorways near window openings towards the field are few the inner entrance. The main stair is a vice in and small; the battlements are boldly corbelled the south-west corner of the building’. 1 Lancaster Gatehouse - The Gatehouse Revealed Fig. 2. Gatehouse from the courtyard. C13 newel stair to the far left. Three floors to roof level. In Anthony Emery’s ‘Greater Medieval Hous- John Champness (Lancaster Castle - A brief es,’ 1996, Vol. 1, p. 173, he adds a note about history, 1993, pp. 9-10), discusses the precise the gatehouse that moderates Hamilton Thomp- dating of the gatehouse, now seen as being son’s understandably (1912) military view of completed between 1403-1413. Duchy ac- the gate’s function. Emery notes: ‘The town of counts show that the Lancaster castle staff were Lancaster had been badly damaged by the Scots authorised to spend 200 marks (£133) per year in 1389, and it is assumed that fear of renewed on building work between 1402 and 1422, attack was the initial reason for Henry IV’s when Henry V died. At that point they had building such a formidable machicolated block. spent £2500, and much must also have been It was also an ostentatious symbol of the new spent on the Norman keep. He sees the apart- king’s power, in a town from which the Duchy ment on the first floor as being used used by the took it name. In addition it provided badly need- constable. This floor also contains the mecha- ed accommodation for the constable, and was nism for the portcullis in the forward part of the used by Henry IV when he received the king of central room. After the Civil War the gatehouse Scotland and the French ambassadors there. The rooms were occupied by debtors. [The statue of three-room plan of lofty central and side cham- John of Gaunt above the entrance was only bers is repeated on the uppermost floor with a placed in the canopied niche in 1822. It origi- more private outer-passage approach’. nally contained the statue of a saint] (fig. 3). 2 Lancaster Gatehouse - The Gatehouse Revealed Fig. 3. Niche with statue (of John of Gaunt, inserted in 1822,) between the two shields of Henry IV. England quartered with France. Figs. 4 (left) & 5 The shields on either side are the royal arms of (below). The heral- England quartered with France modern,with the dic arms of Henry lions of England in the first and fourth quarters. IV and below, the These were the arms adopted by Henry IV c. 1418 sculpture, (1399-1413) in 1406 except that when displayed with coat of arms in England (as here at Lancaster) the three fleur- on the English de-lys of France are always in the first and Tower, Bodrum. fourth quarters. The shield is surmounted by a helm on which rests a cap of maintenance; on this stands the crest of a lion statant guardant (at gaze) and the helm is surrounded by mantling (fig. 4). Whilst the shields have been identified as the arms of Henry IV, they could equally well be for his son Henry V or even his grandson Henry VI. Two similar shields are seen at the English Tower at Bodrum Castle, Turkey, where the quarters are reversed (fig. 5). These may have been erected c. 1418-20. See ‘The Heraldry on the English Tower at Bodrum Castle’ (CSGJ 29, 2015-6 forthcoming).. 3 Lancaster Gatehouse - The Gatehouse Revealed Fig. 6. Lancaster Castle gatehouse. The top 2nd floor rear windows, giving direct light to the three most prestigious rectangular chambers that run parallel and on axis with the gate-passage. Designed in a rather muscular late-perpendicular style the straight-headed two-window lights with heavy drip-mould and supermullioned drop tracery has four-light demi-panels above. Each window is trefoiled. It is difficult to parallel, but flat-headed windows of this kind are usually seen in church clerestories. Compare the similar light in the upper storey of Thornton Abbey c. 1380 or a series at the church at Wortham, Suffolk. John Goodall (The English Castle, 2011) de- The (brief) Listing Description scribes Henry IV’s activity and the gatehouse ‘The Gatehouse, of three storeys and with two thus: ‘As duke of Lancaster and almost irre- towers which have projections of semi-octago- spective of his difficulties as a king, Henry was nal plan, linked by a passageway arch which the pre-eminent castle builder of the kingdom. dies into the reveals, and have machicolations In 1402 he initiated a substantial program of and embattled parapets. To each side square works at Lancaster castle which continued into turrets, with taller stair turrets, rise above the his son’s reign. By 1422, a total of more than parapets. Above the gateway a niche contains a £2,500 had been laid out in the buildings there. statue of John of Gaunt by Claud Nimmo, in- As part of the operation, the existing castle stalled in 1822, flanked by shields of arms of gatehouse was subsumed inside a new building Henry V when Prince of Wales (1407 - 1413). with a twin-towered façade. Ornamented with Gatehouse Internal Rooms: the upper rooms of the king’s arms and those of Henry of Mon- the towers contain cambered roof beams carried mouth as Prince of Wales, the building was on corbelled wall posts. A corridor above the probably completed before the latter’s acces- entrance passage contains the following graffito sion in 1413’… ‘The busily detailed array of incised into the stone: 'John Bailey Committed turrets and battlements gives a fantastical finish April ye 15th, 1741 by Brindle, for kissing', beloved in castle architecture of this period. together with a drawing of a fiddle’. (Fig. 7 Notice that the tallest turrets in this composition below). [It is the work of an 18th century prison- align with the inside face of of the gate-passage er incarcerated in the gatehouse at the time]. below [see fig. 1]. There are also turrets on the outer corners of the building to the rear. This arrangement echoes the distinctive design of the great gate at Dunstanburgh, begun in 1313. [See fig. 31] Such points of similarity are likely to indicate that the duchy of Lancaster masons had access to a working collection of architec- tural drawings similar to those preserved in the Fig. 7 king’s works’ (p. 242, and caption to fig. 261). 4 Lancaster Gatehouse - The Gatehouse Revealed 1 3.1 2 A 3.2 3.3 3 B Fig. 8. Lancaster Castle gatehouse 1402-13. Ground-floor survey plan. North at the top. © English Heritage. Room 1: Guardroom with access to forward turret marked A. 2: Gate- passage. 3: Guardroom with access to Forward turret B. 3.1. Entry to the newel stair that ascends directly to the 2nd floor. 3.2: Original entry to 3 but now rises through an open stairwell to the 1st floor.. 5 Lancaster Gatehouse - The Gatehouse Revealed Fig. 9. Robert Freebairn c. 1800. The view of the inner courtyard looking toward the rear of the gatehouse. One of his many watercolours showing the changes (before and after). As well as the gatehouse, it shows, from right to left: The Dungeon Tower (demolished in 1818), The Gatehouse, The Well Tower (visitable), and the Bowling Green. The curtain walls that butt up against the gatehouse have since been moved forward. (Courtesy of Lancaster City Museums). The ground floor view of the gatehouse from parallel with the gate-passage (plan, fig. 8, the courtyard. Room 1). There is no ascending stair from this The ground-floor view from the rear is particu- chamber.