Gatehouse

A gatehouse is an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the most heavily armed section of a fortification, to compensate for being structurally the weakest and the most probable attack point by an enemy. There are numerous surviving examples in France, Austria, Germany, England and Japan.The entrance to the University of Manchester, built in 1902Barbican gate of Glenarm Castle, Co. AntrimGerman gatehouse in Lich, Hesse built in 1782The gatehouse of Thornton Abbey from the outsideKankaimon, the outermost defensive gate of Shuri CastlePuerta del Sol Moorish gateway from Toledo, SpainGanesh Pol is one of the seven gates of Amber Fort built between 1611 and 1667, India A gatehouse is an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the most heavily armed section of a fortification, to compensate for being structurally the weakest and the most probable attack point by an enemy. There are numerous surviving examples in France, Austria, Germany, England and Japan. Gatehouses made their first appearance in the early antiquity when it became necessary to protect the main entrance to a castle or town. Over time, they evolved into very complicated structures with many lines of defence. Strongly fortified gatehouses would normally include a drawbridge, one or more portcullises, machicolations, arrow loops and possibly even murder-holes where stones would be dropped on attackers. In some castles, the gatehouse was so strongly fortified it took on the function of a keep, sometimes referred to as a 'gate keep'. In the late Middle Ages, some of these arrow loops might have been converted into gun loops (or gun ports). Urban defences would sometimes incorporate gatehouses such as Monnow Bridge in Monmouth. York has four important gatehouses, known as 'Bars', in its city walls including the Micklegate Bar. The French term for gatehouse is logis-porche. This could be a large, complex structure that served both as a gateway and lodging or it could have been composed of a gateway through an enclosing wall. A very large gatehouse might be called a châtelet (small castle).