Tag: Whitefriar’s Gate

I posted about the Whitefriar’s Gate, or Carmelite Gate, yesterday, and today I found this etching in the on-line collections of the British Museum (© The Trustees of the British Museum).

Dating from 1843, it’s quite atmospheric with children playing and chickens eating, and it couldn’t be much more different than the surroundings of the gate today, which is just quite a lot of barrenness. The image was drawn by William Pickford and was etched by William Taylor, with Taylor also being the publisher of the image. The plate isn’t on display at the British Museum, but they’ve owned it since 1876 when they purchased it from the art dealer Robert Jackson.

I’m not sure how I haven’t noticed this before on Hardings Way, but it’s the gateway to Whitefriars, a Carmelite Friary which stood here between around 1260 and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the late 1530s. Although the rest of the monastery has now gone, the street names here reflect the past, there’s The Friars, Carmelite Terrace, Whitefriar’s Terrace, Whitefriar’s Road, All Saints’ Street and Friars Street.

Over the last couple of centuries, buildings have surrounded the gate, but these have mostly been cleared and the structure now looks quite exposed. This area around this gate, inside the former monastery, was also used as a graveyard and some local residents (as well as Anglian Water staff digging in the area) have uncovered bodies.

George Plunkett has a photo of how the gateway looked back in 1935 and there’s an etching of the gate by William Taylor and William Pickford.