Priory Gateway and attached walls is a Grade I listed building in the Central Bedfordshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 4 March 1976. A Medieval Gatehouse.
Priory Gateway and attached walls
- WRENN ID
- still-chalk-wagtail
- Grade
- I
- Local Planning Authority
- Central Bedfordshire
- Constituency
- Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard MP: Alex Mayer (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 4 March 1976
- Type
- Gatehouse
- Period
- Medieval
- Address
- Priory Gateway and attached walls, Church Close, Dunstable, LU6 3SU
- OS grid reference
- TL 020 218
- Coordinates
- 51.88597, -0.51806
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Priory Gateway and attached walls are the remains of the 15th-century outer gatehouse of Dunstable Priory. The gateway is mainly made of Totternhoe limestone, while the adjoining walls incorporate Totternhoe stone along with brick and flint rubble.
The gateway faces north, with the former monastic precinct located to the south. The north side features a large four-centred archway with chamfered jambs and moulded archivolts, accompanied by a smaller pedestrian entrance on the right. Each side of the gates has a chamfered plinth and short sections of faced Totternhoe stone. To the left of the main entrance is a blocked window with a small pointed arch beneath an eroded rectangular hoodmould.
On the south side, the thickness of the walls is visible, along with the rebates where the original gates were hung. The large oak gates currently in place were installed in 2016. An engaged shaft on the left side of the pedestrian entrance reveals part of the interior structure of the gateways, while the right side shows the interior form of the blocked window.
The walls attached to the west of the gateway are constructed of brick with stone rubble elements on the outer face, forming a rough L-shape that serves as a boundary with the Priory Gardens. The wall between the gateway and the church may contain parts of the original precinct boundary wall, although it has likely been largely reconstructed. The wall has a slight kink to the south, is thicker at the base with about 5-10 courses of brickwork, and features a coping course set back behind a weather detail at the top.
Local climate
Priory Gateway and attached walls sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 730 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 78% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 78% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 38 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 71% of listed buildings. Of these, 18 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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