1684 - Middle Temple Gatehouse - Fleet Street, London, UK
N 51° 30.821 W 000° 06.692
30U E 700417 N 5710906
The Middle Temple Gatehouse, built in 1684, stands on the south side of Fleet Street.
Waymark Code: WMG6A4
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 01/19/2013
Views: 6
The building is Grade I listed and the
entry at the English Heritage website [visit
link] tells us:
"1684, by Roger North. 4 storeys.
Red brick and Portland stone. Rusticated ground storey to Fleet Street with 2
round-arched footways and flat headed carriageway with carved keystone. 4 Ionic
pilasters rise through 3, upper storeys to support entablature and pediment with
circular window in tympanum. Upper windows have stone architraves and 2 iron
railed balconies to 1st floor. Plain rear elevation."
The Pastscape website [visit link] also
tells us:
"The Gatehouse (Plate 202),
fronting Fleet Street at the N. end of Middle Temple Lane, is of four storeys;
the walls are of red brick and Portland stone and the roofs are tiled. It was
built in 1684 and designed by Sir Christopher Wren. The N. elevation to Fleet
Street is designed to form a tetrastyle Ionic facade standing on a tall
stylobate and finished with a pediment. The four Ionic pilasters are of stone
and the angles are rusticated, as is also the ground-floor or stylobate. The
wall has rubbed brick facings. Between the first and second-floor windows runs a
stone band inscribed in Roman letters
SVRREXIT.IMPENS.SOC.M.TEMPLI
MDCLXXXIV.
The ground-floor has a
square-headed rusticated archway in the centre, on the keystone of which is the
Agnus Dei and the date 1684. Flanking it on either side are two round-headed
openings, that on the E. being a footway and that on the W. a window to a
chamber of the Porter's Lodge. The three upper storeys have each three windows
with stone architraves and square heads; the sills of the side windows to the
first floor are carried down to the stylobate. In the tympanum of the pediment
is a round- headed window with a stone architrave. The S. elevation to Middle
Temple Lane has plain bands between the storeys, a plain parapet and a
square-headed arch to the roadway. Above it are three square-headed windows, one
to each storey."
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