Abbey Gate College Gatehouse Gateway

The Abbey Gate College Gatehouse, originally known as Saighton Grange, is a gatehouse built in 1490 for Abbot Ripley of St Werburgh's Benedictine Abbey in Chester. It is one of the few remaining monastic manorial buildings in Cheshire, alongside the buildings of Ince Manor in Ellesmere Port. Constructed from red sandstone, the gatehouse features three storeys, including an archway. The corners on either side of the archway are recessed and corbelled above to align with the main wall. The four-centred arch, which has a hoodmould, contains two recessed segmental arches, and there is a blocked arch on the right side.

On the second storey, there is a narrow single-light window above the entrance, a lancet window at the front, another lancet to the side of the left corner, and a crenel to the right. A shared moulded cill connects the lancets to an ornate oriel with three arched lights in the left wall. The right wall features a small, inserted bevelled rectangular window with one light. String courses are present at the second floor and the cill level of the third storey. The third storey has mullioned windows with four arched lights, arranged in pairs at the front and one on each side. All the glazing is leaded. The crenellated parapet, which has a moulded string, projects outward, and the raised, niched merlon on the left contains a stone statue.

At the rear left corner, there is a taller, square stair turret. Inside the gatehouse archway, there are blank embrasures on each side, and the rear corners of the archway are bevelled, suggesting they were once reveals for a former back arch to the gateway. The Victorian Grange is adjacent to the gatehouse.