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Monument Types

• WATER GATE (Built c14th century, 14TH CENTURY AD to 21ST CENTURY AD - 1301 AD to 2050 AD (between))

Associated Events

• Watergate (Ref: WCM100291)
• Watergate (Ref: WCM100292)
• Cathedral Close (various) (Ref: WCM100555)
• Watergate Geophysical survey (Ref: WCM100923)

Protected Status

• Listed Building

Full description

Medieval (14th-century) water gate with later additions.

No.12B COLLEGE GREEN (West side)
Water Gate House and attached walls and gate to east
SO85SW
620-1/3/165
22/05/54
(Formerly Listed as: COLLEGE GREEN (West side) No.12A
Water Gate House)
GV II*

House built over gateway.

C17 house with C19 additions and alterations on C14 gateway. House of pinkish-orange brick, now painted to front facade, with plain tile roof and 3 tall pinkish-orange brick stacks with oversailing course and pots; gateway of coursed red sandstone. House: T-plan. Single storey with attic to gable. Entrance to angle, flight of 10 steps to 4-flush-panel door, adjacent to steps from Cathedral Green down towards the river (see below). Casement window to gable. Casements to return. Rear has 2 casement windows under cambered arches. Gateway has 4-centred arch, plain vault and grooves for portcullis. Stairwell to east: The south wall of the medieval gateway continues to extend eastwards, where it returns southwards up a flight of stone steps to reach the Cathedral Green; stone wall to south is surmounted by a mid C19 stone-coped brick wall with capped end pier and similar but lower wall to the return which flanks the east side of the steps; mid C19 wrought-iron gate and railings to north side.
{1}.

The Water Gate was built in 1378 by Brother William Power, the Cathedral Cellarer {2}, and functioned as a small dock, used by the Priory Ferry, the archway flooding twice a day at high tide. There are two arches, the inner (east) rebated for a pair of doors, the outer with the portcullis slot that continues 1.1 metres below present passage ground level; the portcullis mechanism would have been in a superstructure replaced by the present building above {3}. Excavation (see below) has shown that the southern wall extending from the gate towards the river is 2.4 metres deep at the riverward end and is equipped with mooring rings below the present towpath level.

Excavation in the passageway took place in 1993 (WCM 100292). As well as establishing the level of the base of the passageway walls, it suggested that the present gate was the first structure on this site, built on top of reclamation deposits containing 14th-century pottery. A mooring ring found at a low level was contemporary with the 14th-century structure. The rebuilding of the superstructure in the 17th century was marked in the passageway by a levelling-down episode. The retaining wall to the south-west of the gateway (WCM 96357) was rebuilt or refaced in the 18th century. The excavation encountered a series of re-surfacings of the passageway and a sequence of culverts leading out through it, some pre-dating, one post-dating, the creation of the raised towpath outside associated with the creation of Diglis Lock in 1844 {4}.

Geophysical survey (WCM 100923; GPR) east of the structure suggested the presence of an infilled defile, interpreted by Philip Barker as a slipway or extended dock {5}. It may have been thus used, but may also have originated in an infilled north ditch (WCM 96557) of the former castle (WCM 96017), one of two ditches found by geophysical (electromagnetic) survey higher up the slope on College Green (WCM 100555) heading in this direction. The retaining wall along the east side of the steps down to the Water Gate passageway was shown by the 1993 excavation to be 18th-century in date, the ground formerly having sloped steeply down to the passage {6}.

Cross-reference to: 96358, precinct wall, riverside, north of gate

Sources and further reading

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