Entrance Gate to the Castle
S. Read
1868
Lancaster
Source: the 1868 Illustrated London News
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The gateway . . . is the feature by which the building is best known. It consists of two large octagonal towers, linking a segmental archway, and crowned with a rich cluster of battlemented turrets. The original structure of this gateway beongs to the twelfth century; and some of the guard-rooms, with their massive oak roofs, resting on heavy stone corbels of that date, present interior effects of a very marked and picturesque character. In the fifteenth century the central wall and archway between the towers were cased and enriched; and to this date belongs the niche over the gateway, which carries a figure of John of Gaunt, restored the present century, as well as the row of deep machicolations that surrounds the entire structure and the turrets which crown it. The whole presents a gateway of perhaps more striking and picturesque character than is to be found elsewhere in the kingdom. Illustrated London News
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Bibliography
"Leaves from a Sketchbook: Lancaster." Illustrated London News 53 (1868): 72-74. Hathi Trust online version of a copy in the Princeton University Library. Web. 25 May 2021.
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Last modified 26 May 2021