Richmond Gate Lodge, Screen Walls, Gate Piers And Gates

Richmond Gate Lodge, screen walls, gate piers and gates were designed in 1795 and dated 1798, attributed to Sir John Soane, King's Deputy Surveyor of Woods and Forests.

Materials and Construction

The lodge and matching screen wall are brick-built with stucco render, lined to resemble ashlar stonework. The lodge has a hipped slate roof. Each gate pier is constructed of sandstone on a moulded plinth, with rusticated ashlar piers capped by pyramidal-shaped, deep oversailing moulded cornices. The gates are of wrought iron, with later steel replacements and repairs. The flanking walls are of rendered brick.

Layout and Location

Richmond Gate is located at the Richmond Hill entrance to Richmond Park, oriented north-south. The composition comprises three sets of gate piers and gates, providing three carriage or car entrances and a narrower pedestrian entrance to each side. The main lodge stands on the south side of the gates, with a large screen wall at the opposite end mirroring the architectural design of the lodge.

The Lodge

The main elevation is divided into five narrow symmetrical bays and treated as two storeys. The central bay contains a two-storey recessed arch with a rectangular entrance set within it. The door has four panels and sits in a plain moulded architrave. To either side of the door are single ground floor sash windows of eight over eight panes, with shallow horizontal windows of four over four panes in the second storey above. Each outer bay contains a recessed blind round-arched opening at ground floor level with a recessed blind oculus above. The building has a hipped slate roof behind a parapet above a cornice. A single chimney is set slightly left of centre on the roof ridge.

The return elevation on the north side of the lodge, facing out of the park, comprises three symmetrical bays with a single ground floor sash window of eight over eight panes. Above this is a recessed bullseye window. The outer bays contain recessed blind arched openings at ground floor level with recessed lunettes above. The south elevation is treated identically. Images held at Richmond Reference Library show that in the 19th century the lodge had a porch added, probably removed in the 20th century, and that the blind windows in the screen wall had at various points been painted to look like real windows. Single-depth stone flag paving is attached to the lodge and runs the length of the building.

The Screen Wall

The screen wall at the opposite end of the gate receives the same architectural treatment as the lodge. Its north and south elevations, facing into and out of the park, mirror the side elevations of the lodge, the only difference being that there are no windows in the central bays, only blind openings. The two structures were clearly designed as a pair to present a symmetrical composition viewed on the approach to the park from Richmond Hill.

Gate Piers

Three pairs of gate piers create a wide central entrance and two narrower flanking entrances through Richmond Gate. Each pier is square on plan with a moulded plinth and dressed, rusticated ashlar above, topped by a pyramidal-shaped, deep oversailing moulded cornice. Facing towards the outside of the park, the two central-most gate piers bear the initials GR and CR in wrought iron painted in gold, representing George and Charlotte, then King and Queen of England. The two piers to either side of the central-most piers share the date the gates were erected, 1798, in Roman numerals: MDCC and XCVIII. The outer-most gate piers, which enclose the pedestrian gates, are the same height as the plat band on the lodge and screen wall, and are slightly lower in height than the other four piers. Each of these external piers contains an alcove. Attached to the pedestrian gate on the north side, next to the screen wall, is a second, later 20th-century gated area, presumably intended to keep the deer from escaping from the park. This later addition is not of special interest.

Gates

Apart from the pedestrian entrances at either end which are of wrought iron, the central gates appear to be largely a modern replacement but incorporate elements of earlier gates. All gates have dog bars and spearhead finials. The central gates are flanked by a narrow screen of railings set on a concrete plinth leading up to the central carriage gate.

Flanking Walls

At either end of the lodge and screen wall are ramped, curved flanking walls which connect to the boundary walls of the park on the south side and to Ancaster House on the north. They are built of brick and rendered on the outer face. They appear to be part of the original design since they join at the pediment and plat bands on the lodge and screen wall, contributing to the overall symmetrical composition of the gate and lodges as a whole.

Historical Background

Richmond Gate is the main entrance to Richmond Park, the largest Royal Park in London and designated Grade I on the Register of Parks and Gardens. This thoroughfare through the park was used by road traffic and pedestrians for hundreds of years before the construction of the existing gates and lodge. It provides the main access to the park from the town of Richmond on the banks of the River Thames. Richmond was the site of the medieval royal palace of Shene, later known as Richmond Palace, and the area became increasingly fashionable in the 18th century. Richmond Park was enclosed by Charles I in 1637 and the enclosure walls remain to this day, although their fabric has been much renewed. Despite efforts by members of the Royal Household to restrict public access to the park, in 1758 public rights of way were upheld and are maintained to this day.

The gate and lodges were constructed by the firm Kent, Claridge & Pierce between 1798 and 1799 to replace an existing wooden gate and ladder-stile entrance. Recent research has attributed Richmond Gate and associated lodge to the eminent Neoclassical architect John Soane (1753-1837), who designed them in 1795 as the newly-appointed King's Deputy Surveyor of Woods and Forests. Evidence of Soane's initial design, an annotated 'Copy Lincoln's Inn Fields Sep 14th 1795', is archived at the Soane Museum in London (Sir John Soane's Museum 62/9/17). These drawings depict gates and a lodge architecturally similar to the existing gates, although not identical.

In 1896 the gates were widened. It was probably at this point that the height of the second set of gate piers was increased to match the height of the central carriage gate piers. Images from around 1900 to 1905 show that the two central pairs of gate piers are the same height and have been moved further apart, with the central carriage gate widened and the screen of railings to either side of the carriage gate converted into two more gates. This allows traffic to enter and exit from three openings in the gate rather than just one, the arrangement still in use today.

It may be that further alterations to the gates took place during the Second World War when Richmond Park was used extensively by the Ministry of Defence.