Erwarton Hall Gatehouse

An ornamental gatehouse, constructed around 1549. The design is not attributed to a named individual and is completed in an English Renaissance style.

MATERIALS:

The gatehouse is entirely constructed of handmade red bricks laid in English bond, with special curved bricks and some cut-and-rubbed where detailing required it. The concealed roof is covered in cement render.

PLAN:

Square in plan, the gatehouse is aligned on a north-south axis with the entrance to the Hall at the south. The building's southern bay has two small pedestrian gates at the east and west sides.

EXTERIOR:

The gatehouse is a single storey structure with wide semi-circular pediments on each elevation. The pediments conceal the top of the brick vault and central transverse arch, both of which are capped in a C20 concrete render. At roof level: at the centre of the plan, at the four corners, and at the cardinal points is a total of nine round pinnacles. Except over the carriageway at the centre of the building's north-south plan, the pinnacles are supported on chunky, rounded buttresses. The central pinnacle is topped by a wrought iron weather vane.

A broadly spaced modillion cornice wraps around the whole structure and there is a plinth around its 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. A number of these replacement bricks have graffiti dating from the Navy's occupancy of Erwarton Hall. On each side of the arch is a small rubbed brick oculus. The south elevation is similar to the north but does not have a gate or any oculi.

The east and west elevations are both divided by a large central buttress. To the north of the buttress is a single oculus, and to its south is a low pedestrian archway that abuts a C20 boundary wall. The pedestrian arches both have wooden gates within them.

INTERIOR:

The gatehouse has a single inner volume without any ornament. 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 at a high level, and localised areas of repair and replacement of bricks.