| Description: | The west gate is one of the lesser known of the city’s gates; it was taken down in 1815, but there is only really one adequate engraved view of the gate, that by Sprake (REN 1894; cf. Jenkins 1841, Pl. facing p. 401). This shows that the gate was a single archway, flush with the outside face of the wall, and flanked by two arrow slits; the wall to either side was crenellated, and there were large buttresses of two stages flanking the gate further out. Over the gateway there was a tower, with one upper floor and a crenellated parapet; a panel was let into the wall above the arch, which documentary references show to have contained the Royal Arms: the Kings arms over west gate were renovated in 1501-2 at a cost of 40s (Blaylock 1995, 12).
The city accounts contain frequent references to repairs and maintenance of the gates, and incidental information from which details of the fittings and appearance of the gates can be gleaned. A ‘wyket’ in the West gate is mentioned in 1451-2; hooks to hang chains outside the gate in 1495-6; and a piece of timber to support a gun at West Gate in1496-7 (Blaylock 1995, 11). Extensive repairs were made to the gate in the mid-16th century: just over £8 being spent of repairs to the gate and the wall adjacent in 1550-51; two years later (perhaps at the end of a building project), lead for the roof cost £11 13s 4d and one Cornel, a painter, was paid 54s 2d for ‘making the Lady Queen’s Arms on the wall of the said gate’ (Blaylock 1995, 12).
Jenkins’ description of the gate in 1806 adds some additional information, and presciently forecasts its demolition: ‘a very ancient, but mean structure, and inferior in point of architecture to the other City gates; it consists of a square tower, something loftier than the walls, without any projection on the outside, or flanking bulwarks; in this tower is an ill-contrived room, with a small window looking towards the suburbs; on the interior front is the remains of an inscription now obliterated: the entrance into the City is through an irregular pointed arch, and the whole has the appearance of remote antiquity; it has no insignia of arms or ornament remaining on it, and being now in a very ruinous state, will, in all probability, be soon taken down.’ (Jenkins 1806, 406; REN 1412).
The demolition of the gate and the adjacent wall proceeded by stages in the first half of the 19th century; this can be followed through documentary and pictorial references (adapted from Blaylock 1995, 74): The situation after 1815 is shown by an engraving published in Shapter's History of the Cholera in Exeter, showing the site of the gate in full elevation (Shapter 1849, 111; RENN 1718; cf. also ibid., 86 for an oblique view along the face of the wall in the same area). These views show that the south-east side of the breach retained wall fabric and was finished with a similar rounded quoin to that which survives on the north-west quoin. Although dated in the 1830s and 40s it can be assumed that this was the situation in the period after the removal of the gate in 1815. A further stage of demolition is shown in a pencil sketch attributed to John Gendall and dated c. 1840 (REN 1721; WSL, P&D 5664). This is drawn looking west from inside the walls, at the time of the demolition of the wall on the SE side of the site of the gate, and shows the west wall of the gate (or the side wall of an adjacent building) in elevation, with evidence for two storeys, and windows in both levels. Thus a widening of the breach around 1840 is suggested. The 1876 OS Town Plan shows a gap of 40m in this position; the present gap is 77m. Some of the foundation of the wall could survive beneath the road. An etching by David Neave of c. 1912, shows West Street and Cricklepit Street (the then names of the streets, within and without the City Wall respectively) prior to the construction of Western Way (WCSL P & D D-7280; EPRS 306). According to a description of 1956: `the section south of the site of the West Gate has been entirely rebuilt up to the flight of steps [i.e. the present NW limit of section 19] and is set back from the original line' (letter from Aileen Fox to City Surveyor, 6th December 1956: ECC Department of Technical Services microfiche file). Excavations on this position in 1961-2 yielded no traces of medieval fabric or deposits (REN 34). |
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