St Benet's Abbey Gatehouse and adjacent section of precinct wall

St Benet's Abbey Gatehouse and Adjacent Section of Precinct Wall

St Benet's Abbey Gatehouse is a mid- to late 14th-century structure situated on the north-west edge of the D-shaped abbey precinct. A conical-shaped windmill was built into its ruins during the mid-18th century.

The gatehouse comprises two chambers. The north-west and south-east façades are faced with knapped flint and ashlar flushwork, decorated with stone relief carvings, while other walls are faced with red brick. The mill itself is constructed entirely of red brick.

The north-west chamber is entered through a two-pointed arch with four orders of mouldings. The inner order is decorated with twelve carved forms, possibly grotesque figures or beasts, of which only ten survive. The following three orders have chamfered faces and deep three-quarter hollows. The spandrels are filled with large relief carvings: an armed man bearing a staff on the left and a rampant beast on the right, variously identified as either a lion or dragon. A fragmentary frieze crosses the façade at first floor level. Two polygonal turrets flank the arch, extending just beyond the outer wall of the windmill. Most of the side walls of this chamber have been demolished by the insertion of the mill. Further south-east from the entrance arch is a vaulted narthex, of which three moulded transverse ribs survive with a ridge-piece and bosses.

The narthex opens into the second, south-east chamber, whose side walls survive. It was originally vaulted in two bays. Three surviving responds have either single or clustered columns with moulded bases, foliage capitals and vaulting springers. The outside of the entrance archway on the south-east side comprises three different orders separated by three-quarter hollows. The apex of the outer order has been repaired in red brick, a repair that extends further into the left spandrel than the right, which are otherwise faced with flushwork bands incorporating the devices of England and France. The inside of the arch comprises two moulded orders with chamfered faces separated by a triangular recess rather than a hollow. The outside of the arch is flanked by pilaster buttresses with ogee gabled niches. Either side of these are short expanses of wall followed by diagonal buttresses. The wall between the buttresses on the right-hand side is wider to accommodate an arched stairway rising to the now demolished first floor. The stair has brick steps and the upper part has a stone newel post. Evidence suggests the first floor contained two rooms which may have been used as a chapel and/or accommodation for a gatekeeper.

The windmill is circular in plan, forming a truncated cone with an ovoid opening at the top. It has numerous doorways and windows on three levels, most of which have been blocked, indicating a change in function. It is entered on the south-eastern face through a doorway with a segmental brick arch, as do the other apertures. Additional blocked doorways face east and west, with two windows at ground level facing north and north-west. Between them, at a slightly higher level, is a relieving arch which possibly indicates the position of a shaft to a drainage pump. At middle level there is a blocked window and tall doorways facing east and west which formerly opened onto a wooden platform running around the building. On the upper stage, blocked windows face north-west and south-east.

Adjacent to the west side of the gatehouse is the only substantial surviving section of the abbey's precinct wall, measuring 18 metres long and 3.04 metres high. It is different in construction and date from other walls, probably erected in the late medieval period. The eastern side is faced with whole flints laid in herringbone fashion, alternating with bands of brick. The western side is faced with whole flints and bricks laid in a less regular pattern. The wall is battlemented and pierced by two splayed apertures.