Erwarton Hall Gatehouse

Erwarton Hall Gatehouse is an ornamental gatehouse dating from around 1549, built in the English Renaissance style without attribution to a specific designer.

The gatehouse is constructed entirely of handmade red bricks in English bond, with curved and cut-and-rubbed bricks used for detailing. The concealed roof is covered in cement render. The plan is square, aligned on a north-south axis with the entrance to Erwarton Hall to the south. The southern bay features two small pedestrian gates on the east and west sides.

The gatehouse is a single-storey structure with wide, semi-circular pediments on each elevation. These pediments conceal the top of the brick vault and central transverse arch, both capped in 20th-century concrete render. At roof level, there are nine round pinnacles positioned centrally, at the four corners, and at the cardinal points. Except over the central carriageway, the pinnacles are supported by chunky, rounded buttresses. A wrought iron weather vane tops the central pinnacle. A broadly spaced modillion cornice runs around the top of the building, and a plinth runs around the base.

The north elevation has a round carriage arch at the centre, with a short wooden gate. Some of the brick quoins of the archway have been sensitively replaced, and some replacement bricks bear graffiti from the Navy's occupancy of Erwarton Hall. Rubbed brick oculi are on either side of the arch. The south elevation is similar, but without a gate or oculi.

The east and west elevations are both divided by a large central buttress. A single oculus is located to the north of the buttress, and to the south is a low pedestrian archway abutting a 20th-century boundary wall. Both pedestrian archways have wooden gates within them.

The interior consists of a single, unornamented volume. The barrel vault of the roof is supported by the outer walls and by a round transverse arch at the centre of the plan. There are traces of render on the brickwork high up, along with localised repairs and replacement bricks.