Great Gateway To Kepier Hospital (That Part Within The City Of Durham)

The Great Gateway to Kepier Hospital, located within the City of Durham, is a 14th-century hospital gatehouse. It is constructed from coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings and features a pantiled roof with stone gable copings and brick chimneys. The building has a T-plan layout and consists of two storeys with three bays.

The central bay features a two-centred arch supported by shafts, which has a drip string and a blind quatrefoil frieze above it. There is a two-centred-arched window above the arch with casements beneath a dripmould, and a top string under the gable on the second storey. Flanking the arch are buttresses with plinths and offsets. The left bay contains a renewed boarded door under a stone lintel, with a blocked small window directly above it, and a chamfered lintel above a small first-floor window. The right bay has a small elliptical-headed opening on the ground floor and a small square casement above. The cyma-moulded plinth of the buttresses extends along part of the right bay.

The gateway features two quadripartite vaults on corbels and a central arch, although the bosses are eroded and missing, with small openings in the side walls. The rear elevation includes a polygonal stair turret to the north of the arch, leading to a stone stair that accesses a first-floor Tudor-arched doorway, and a carved kneeler on the north gable.

Inside, the building showcases a segmental-headed fireplace in the north room, a double-chamfered arch on responds in the south room, and several two-centred-arched doorways in the upper rooms, along with part of a spiral stair in the turret. The stonework is heavily eroded. The Great Gateway is also designated as a scheduled ancient monument.