Westgate, Canterbury

External view, next to the River Stour

Canterbury was walled by the Romans around 300 AD. This has been consistently the most important of the city's gates as it is the London Road entrance and the main entrance from most of Kent. The present towers are a medieval replacement of the Roman west gate, rebuilt around 1380. There was a gate here at the time of the Norman conquest, which is thought to have been Roman. From late Anglo-Saxon times it had the Church of the Holy Cross on top, but both church and gate were dismantled in 1379, and the gate was rebuilt by Archbishop Simon Sudbury before he died in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.[1][2][3] It has been suggested that it was built primarily as an entrance for pilgrims visiting the shrine of St Thomas Becket at the cathedral.[4] However the rebuild as a defensive status symbol was paid for partly by Sudbury and partly by taxation for military protection against expected raids by the French.[5]

In 1453 Henry VI permitted the Mayor and Commonality to keep a jail at the Westgate, so the building was Canterbury's prison from the 15th to the 19th century, while Canterbury Castle was the county jail. In January 1648, after the Christmas Day riot, Parliamentarians burnt down all the wooden doors of the city's gates. They were all replaced in 1660, but these replacements were removed at the end of the eighteenth century. They were similar to the surviving wooden Christ Church gates at the cathedral.[1][5] After repairs to the Westgate and jail in 1667, a pound was built on the north side for the hail; this is now gone, but Pound Lane remains. The guard rooms, heavily wood-lined in the eighteenth century, became cells for both debtors and criminals, and the room over the arch became the condemned cell with the portcullis now laid on top. Until 1775 there was a grated cage in the prison gateway, where certain prisoners were allowed to beg for alms and speak with passers by. Capital punishment was normally the gallows, plus the stake at Wincheap for religious martyrs in the time of Queen Mary.[1]

Westgate Towers in the Edwardian era

In the 19th century, the city walls that joined the gateway to the back of the drum towers were removed. Following this, in 1823–1829, a jailer's house was built on the north side, and this became the headquarters of Canterbury City Police. It is now a bar and cafe, whose dining room is still known as "The Parade Room", with a police truncheon used as its badge. The disused iron bridge which connects the Westgate with the bar and cafe dates from this time. Contemporary with this work was the building of St Peter's Place on the south side of the Westgate, along with passages around the Westgate and a new road across the Stour, to cope with increased traffic.[5] At the end of the 19th century the Westgate was used as a temporary repository for the city archives, and a museum was opened in the gatehouse in 1906.[6]

In 2009–10, Canterbury City Council considered closing the museum, now called the Westgate Towers Museum, which proved to be a controversial option.[7][8] An additional year's funding was made available to give time to examine alternative operating models, and in 2011 the museum was reopened by Charles Lambie, the chairman of the trustees of Canterbury Archaeological Trust, who intended to build an extension to the building focusing on the penal history of Westgate.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] Lambie died in 2012, having invested £1 million in the project, causing the closure of the museum and generating fresh questions about the building's future. In 2014, the council agreed to assign the lease to the One Pound Lane company, who stated that they intended to reopen the existing museum and develop a restaurant and bar in the premises.[19] The Westgate reopened to the public on 3 August 2015.

In the 21st century, Westgate is the largest surviving city gate in England.[1][2][3][5] The gateway is protected under UK law as a Grade I listed building, and a trial to ban road traffic from passing through the gate was undertaken in 2012.[20][21][22]