The North Gatehouse Of Launceston Castle And Attached Walls

The North Gatehouse of Launceston Castle and attached walls is a gatehouse built in the mid to late 13th century for Richard of Cornwall. It was partly demolished in 1764. The structure is made of slatestone rubble, with local greenstone and volcanic stone dressings. The gatehouse features a square gateway and a rectangular building to the south. The outer face of the gateway has been cut back, while the inner face displays a 2-centred arch with three chamfered orders. Inside the opening, there is a slot for an inner portcullis, and the ribbed vault consists of two complete bays and part of a third. Weathered buttresses flank either side of the gateway, which has been reduced to the level of the apex of the relieving arch; above this used to be a room for the constable. The adjoining building to the south has a small window opening looking into the bailey, with evidence of two more openings and a pointed-arched doorway leading from the passage, which contains an old oak gate. Inside, there are wall cupboards along the party wall and a stone-lined pit at the south end of the room, likely the base of a former 12th-century stone tower, which has the springing stones of a later vault. Historically, this room and its pit were later used as a prison, most notably for George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, who was imprisoned in 1656 for distributing a religious paper near Land's End.