Balkerne Gate - Balkerne Gardens, Colchester, UK
N 51° 53.378 E 000° 53.634
31U E 355067 N 5750859
The Balkerne Gate is located in the Roman Wall of Colchester on the west side of the town. Believed to have been originally built as a monumental arch it was later incorporated into the Roman wall.
Waymark Code: WMRNH5
Location: Eastern England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 07/13/2016
Views: 1
A metal plaque, attached to the Balkerne Gate, is inscribed:
The Balkerne Gate
The west gate of Roman Colchester
c200 AD
The largest surviving gateway in
Roman Britain
Wikipedia has an article about the Balkerne Gate that advises:
Balkerne Gate is a 1st-century Roman gateway in Colchester. It is the largest surviving gateway in Roman Britain and was built where the Roman road from Londinium intersected the town wall. It is a Grade I listed building.
The gate, which is the best-preserved Roman gateway in the country, was built c. AD 70–96. The gatehouse, which originally had two main arched passageways with separate arched footways on both sides, has largely disappeared. The remaining gateway which we see today is the south-side arched footway; however the remains of a guard tower are also visible. From The Balkerne Gate, Colchester by R.E.M. Wheeler (1920):
The gate consisted of two broad carriageways, each 17 ft (5.2 m) wide, flanked by two footways, each about 6 ft (1.8 m) wide. The whole gate projects 30 ft (9.1 m) in front of the town wall, and the total extent of the frontage is 107 ft (33 m).
Roman town gates could have as many as three entrances but are usually limited to one or two. The Balkerne Gate, however, had four gates, and unusually wide carriageways.
There are no other quadruple gates in Britain but there are a few elsewhere in Europe; for example, the Porte d'Auguste at Nîmes, the Porte Ste. André and the Port d'Arroux at Autun, and the Palatine Towers at Turin.
As mentioned, the Balkerne Gate is a Grade I listed building with the entry at the Historic England website telling us:
Probably of C2 date, rather earlier than the walls themselves. The ruin of the only remaining Roman gateway in the town wall. It is a remarkable monument and the best preserved of any Roman gateway in the country. It is also the largest, - 107 ft wide with 2 carriageways and 2 footways. It has been over-built by the Hole-in-the-wall Public House, But the north tower still stands 20 ft high and the arches of the south footway are 13 ft.