Whitehall Gate

Whitehall Gate (The Court Gate).

The old Tudor gatehouse of Whitehall Palace is shown in Hollar's view on Plate 4. From the fact that it is alluded to several times⁸ between 1531 and 1539 as a "new" building, there can be little doubt that it was erected by Henry VIII, and was not one of the portions of York Place that survived the transformation into Whitehall. In 1668, the lower part of the building was much altered in connection with the formation of the new gallery from the Banqueting House to the King's Guard Chamber (see p. 63), and in 1676 the upper part was taken in hand.⁹ The gatehouse, as thus altered, was more lofty, with a conical roof, and was entered by a door flanked by two passages, each in the form of a quadrant, together making a semi-circle. The exterior of the reconstructed gatehouse is well shown in Terrason's View (Plate 16), the details of the two flanking passages¹⁰ being more clearly seen in Persoy's engraving of the Funeral of Queen Mary, reproduced in Loftie's Whitehall. The "Cosimo" drawing of 1669 (Plate 4) shows the lower works completed, but the top part, including the battlements, untouched. A view from the inside of the Court is given in Plate 46, and a view of the interior of the gatehouse is contained in Rooker's illustration of the Horse-Guards here reproduced.¹¹

The gatehouse escaped the Fire of 1698.¹² It lasted until 1765, when it was found to be "in so ruinous a Condition" as to be in great danger of falling.¹³ It was thereupon demolished. Three years later, however, as a result of "great disorders & robberys" which had occurred about Whitehall Court, it was decided to build "a new Gateway and Gates" at an estimated cost of £156.¹⁴ This in turn was taken down in 1813, and set up in the City of London Brewery.¹⁵

The rooms over the gate were used as lodgings. Among others the Lord Almoner had his residence here,¹⁶ and Dean Dering records that on his visit to London in 1703 he "lodged in the almoner's lodgings, over the gate-house at Whitehall, the pleasantest room in London, one window looking down the Thames to the bridge, and another up the canal in the park."¹⁷ Sir Robert Carr was accommodated there in 1676,¹⁸ and in 1729 Lord Vere Beauclerk was granted the use of "ye Lodgings over Whitehall Gate, formerly the Green Cloth Office."¹⁹

The Porter's Lodge was on the ground floor under the Gate.²⁰ It was occasionally used as a prison. Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey in 1669 caused the king's physician, Sir Alexander Frasier, to be arrested for £30 due to him for firewood. Pepys states²¹ that the bailiffs were whipped by the King's command, and that Godfrey hardly escaped the same punishment. He was, however, confined for a time in the Porter's Lodge at Whitehall.²²

^8. (i) The building accounts for 1531–2 (P.R.O., E. 36/252, p. 529) contain the item: "The wagies of Bricklayers and Roughlayers to the noumbre of lv working by alle the tyme of this paye upon a walle by the highwey side leeding from the news Gatehouse towards Charing Crosse; (ii) "the King riding from Yorke Place to Westminister with all his lordes before him, the Queene [Jane Seymour] standing in the news gatehouse beholding the King and his lordes as they rode" (Wriothesley's Chronicle, Vol I, p. 45); (iii) the City bands on 8th May, 1539, marched through "alle the citte and throw alle Westm' and aboute alle the news parke ... and the Kynge stode at Westmynster over the new gate, and saw them alle" (London Chronicle, Camden Misc., IV).

^9. See details, in P.R.O., Works, 5/27. They included: (i) "setting up ye Crowne and ye stone bosse and ye figure of two and ye 4 C^s on ye tope of ye greate gatehowse"; (ii) "helping to take downe ye battlements of brickeworke on ye top of ye said gatehowse."

^10. The description of them as given in the records is as follows: "Working up iiij Circuler walls without the great Gate ... the length of the said walls being lxij foot, and the heighth xv foot, the other two circuler walls wrought with Bricks rubbed and hewed to a scantling, with iiij Circuler Neeches in the said wall and iiij Circular Arches over them, and two dorewayes in ye said wall with Arches and dorewayes both within and without them, the Length of ye said Circuler walls of rub'd worke being xl fot and ye height thereof xv foot with iiij great Arches ... cutting Slates to Cover ye Circuler worke without ye Gate" (P.R.O., Works, 5/11).

^11. The engraving is dated 1768, but it obviously shows the old gate demolished in 1765.

^12. No mention of its survival is contained in any of the contemporary accounts of the Fire which have been examined, but a comparison of the building in the engravings by Persoy and Terrason leaves little doubt on the point.

^13. P.R.O., Works, 6/18, p. 105.

^14. P.R.O., Works, 6/18, p. 186.

^15. 21 st January, 1814. Mr. Richard Wilford, the Master Mason in the Department of Whitehall, brought an Account of Portland Stone in the Gateway which was formerly there and intended to be paid for by Charles Calvert Esq^re, as he has set it up in Upper Thames Street; the contents are 656 feet which Mr. Wilford has put at 6/- p^r foot." (P.R.O., Works, 4/21, p. 206.)

^16. "Warrant to put the Bishop of London, Lord Almoner to his Ma^tie, into possession of the little Closett adjoyning to the chamber over the gate which his Loship now [has], and which doth properly belong to the Ld Almoner" (20th May, 1664, P.R.O., L.C. 5/138, p. 441); "finishing the ceiling and inside walls of the new roome over the Gateway at my L^d Almoners lodgings" (February, 1691, P.R.O., Works, 5/44).


^17. Yorkshire Diaries (Surtees Socy.), Vol. 65, p. 342.

^18. "These are to pray and require you That in repayring of the gate at Whitehall you make up and finish the roome at the top of the Gate for the use of the Rt Hon^ble Sir Robert Carre, Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster" (12th June, 1676. P.R.O., L.C. 5/141, p. 407).

^19. P.R.O., L.C. 5/160, p. 108.

^20. The plan of 1670 marks the rooms on the south side of the entrance "4," which the key interprets as "porters lodge." The numbers, although given by the copies in the Crace Collection and in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries, were omitted by Vertue.

^21. Diary, 26th May, 1669.

^22. "S^r Edmond Godfrey still Continues at ye Porters Lodge at Whitehall, whence he Expects to be freed at the terme, and therefore refuses to petietion." Letter dated 10th June, 1669, from Edwd. Boscawen to Sir Wm. Godophin, B.M. Add. MS. 28053, f.24.)