Abbey Gate College Gatehouse Gateway

SJ 46 SW SAIGHTON C.P. CHAPEL LANE (East side)

3/170 Abbey Gate College Gatehouse (formerly listed as Saighton Grange) Gateway 1/6/1967 I

Gatehouse, 1490, for Abbot Ripley of St Werburgh's Benedictine Abbey, Chester. Saighton Grange Gatehouse and buildings of Ince Manor, Ellesmere Port (q.v.) are the only surviving monastic manorial buildings in Cheshire. Red sandstone. Three storeys including archway. The corners left and right of the archway are recessed, and corbelled above to the main wall face. The four-centred arch (with hoodmould) contains 2 recessed segmental arches. There is a blocked arch in the right side. The second storey has a narrow single-light window over the crown of the entrance, one lancet to the front and one to the side of the left corner and a crenel to the right. A shared moulded cill links the lancets to an ornate oriel of 3 arched lights in the left wall. In the right wall is an inserted small, bevelled rectangular window (one light). String courses at second floor and third storey cill level. The third storey has mullioned windows of 4 arched lights, paired to the front and one in each side. All glazing is leaded. The crenellated parapet, with moulded string, projects. The raised, niched merlon, left, contains a stone statue. A taller, square stair turret stands at the rear left corner. Within the gatehouse archway is a blank embrasure to each side. The rear corners of the archway are bevelled, as if they were reveals to a former back arch to the gateway. The Victorian Grange (q.v.) abuts.

Listing NGR: SJ4431061793