Balkerne Gate is a Roman gateway in

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colch ...

(the former

Camulodunum Camulodunum (; la, ), the Ancient Roman name for what is now Colchester in Essex, was an important castrum and city in Roman Britain, and the first capital of the province. A temporary "strapline" in the 1960s identifying it as the "oldest re ...

). It is the largest surviving gateway in

Roman Britain Roman Britain was the period in classical antiquity when large parts of the island of Great Britain were under occupation by the Roman Empire. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. During that time, the territory conquered wa ...

and was built where the Roman road from Londinium intersected the town wall of Camulodunum. It is a scheduled monument and a Grade I listed building.

History

According to Historic England, the gate probably dates to the 2nd century AD. It appears to have incorporated an existing monumental arch from the 1st century. Sir

Mortimer Wheeler Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler CH CIE MC TD (10 September 1890 – 22 July 1976) was a British archaeologist and officer in the British Army. Over the course of his career, he served as Director of both the National Museum of Wales an ...

excavated at the site in 1917. According to a paper he published subsequently:

The gate consisted of two broad carriageways, each wide, flanked by two footways, each about wide. The whole gate projects in front of the town wall, and the total extent of the frontage is .

Although it is the best-preserved Roman gateway in the country, it only survives in part. The remaining gateway is the south-side arched footway; however, the remains of a guard tower are also visible. The rest of the gateway has been overbuilt by the 18th-century Hole in the Wall public house, which is also a listed building.

Structure

Roman town gates sometimes had as many as three entrances but were 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 Porte d'Arroux at

Autun Autun () is a subprefecture of the Saône-et-Loire department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of central-eastern France. It was founded during the Principate era of the early Roman Empire by Emperor Augustus as Augustodunum to give a Ro ...

, and the Palatine Towers at Turin.

References

{{coord, 51.88966, 0.89371, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title, name=Balkerne Gate Buildings and structures completed in the 1st century Buildings and structures in Colchester (town) Buildings and structures in Roman Britain Gates in England Roman sites in England Arches and vaults in England Town Gates in England Grade I listed gates Grade I listed buildings in Essex