Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Grade I listed building. Main construction periods 1283 to 1309. Gatehouse to St Augustine's Abbey built by Abbot Fyndon (1283-1309). The construction of the gatehouse may have begun in 1300 when, at the same time, a parcel of land on the west was enclosed. A licence to crenellate the new 'great gate' was granted in 1308. The fabric of the gatehouse is known to have formed part of a brewhouse in the 18th century. By late November 1940 there was an Auxiliary Fire Service Action Post at the Fyndon Gate of St Augustine’s College. The gateway was severely battered during the Blitz of 1942.

Monument Types

• GATEHOUSE (Medieval to Modern - 1283 AD to 2050 AD)
• CIVIL DEFENCE BUILDING (Modern - 1939 AD? to 1945 AD?)

Full description

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Description from record TR 15 NE 857:
By late November 1940 there was an Auxiliary Fire Service Action Post at the Fyndon Gate of St Augustine’s College. A printed notice, on reused card, was displayed here stating that ‘During Air Raid Warnings this Gateway is an A.F.S. Post and should not be used for loitering nor as a Shelter (unless in sudden emergency). The nearest Shelter is down the lane through the brick archway. By Order’; the reverse side of the card enumerated the College rules. The gateway was severely battered during the Blitz of 1942.
Owner : Private
Publicly accessible : Unknown
How accessed for survey :
Tourism Potential :
Condition : unknown
Date of visit :

Description from record TR 15 NE 223:
[TR15385785] The Abbey Gate [NR]. (1) The Fyndon Gate. Abbot Fyndon, 1300-05, built the great gate. (2) The Great Gateway, or Fyndon's Gateway, at St Augustine's College. Grade I. Dates from 1283-1309. Stone arch with chamber above. (3) Fyndon Gate, built 1300-1309. A handsome 2-storeyed building with enriched octagonal turrets at the front and smaller square ones at the back. Much damaged by enemy action in 1942, but has been carefully restored. (4) See Illustration Card. (5) Great Gate used as a brewery in the 18th century. (6)

The Canterbury UAD states;
In 1308 Abbot Fyndon was licensed to crenellate the Great Gate of the Abbey. The Great Gate, was built by Abbot Thomas Fyndon between c. 1300 and 1308, forming the culmination of this Abbbot's great programme of re-building, and replaced the earlier gate some 100 feet to the south, at the south end of the Guest House, which was closed and blocked up.

The style of the Gate is fully Decorated, with unmistakable premonitions of Perpendicular. Octagonal side turrets flanked the entrance way. Half-way up is a ring of gabled niches, eating away the angles of the turrets. Above that the vertical lines are emphasised by a sort of panelling formed by carrying down the mullions of the pierced lights at the turret-tops. Miniature battlements cap the towers. The entrance arch and super arch, magnificently wide, spans from turret to turret, this too is highly decorated with shafts with naturalistic leaves on the capitals. Square flowers round both arches. In the spandrels there are quatrefoils with ballflower, and mutilated seated figures within them. Higher up comes a rich frieze of gabled, trefoiled niches, some ogee-headed, with two-light cusped windows between them. Then a row of interlocking cusped triangles, and at the skyline panelled battlements. The wall cresting to the right of the gateway, curling up into trefoils. Inside the gateway is vaulted in two bays and a half and is exceptionally deep, with more sculptures. A second small gateway to the north side, is of Tudor date, built of brick and relates to the royal palace.

Fyndon's Gate now forms part of the King's School.

The following text is from the original listed building designation:
1. 944 MONASTERY STREET (East Side)
The Great Gateway (or Fyndon's Gateway) at St Augustine's College TR 1557 NW 5/152A 3.12.49.
I GV
2. Dates from 1283-1309. Stone arch with chamber above, flanked by stone octagonal turrets. The turrets have blank niches and corbels. Waterspouts. Crenellated parapet with stone seated figure.
NO 1, wall adjoining No 1 to right, water pump opposite No 1, Nos 2, Nos 4 to 18 (even), St Augustine's College, Hall, Chapel, The Cemetary Gateway, The Great Gateway, wall in front of St Augustine's form a group. Listing NGR: TR1538557846 (11)

Historic England archaive material: AL2400/108/02 View of the gateway to St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, from the west

Anon. Canterbury Auxiliary Fire Service officer, Auxiliary Fire Service notice (Artifact). SKE14740.

<1> OS 1/1250 1957 (OS Card Reference). SKE48116.

<2> Arch Cant 46 1934 182 plan (RU Potts) (OS Card Reference). SKE35178.

<3> DOE (HHR) City of Canterbury Kent Sept 1973 146 (OS Card Reference). SKE40002.

<4> St Augustine's Abbey DOE Handbook 1955 22 (A Clapham) (OS Card Reference). SKE49559.

<5> St Augustine's Abbey and the Royal Palace, CAT Leaflet, Dec 1984 (T Tatton-Brown, M Sparks) (OS Card Reference). SKE49549.

<6> St Augustine's Abbey Eng Heritage Handbook 1988 13 (M Sparks) (OS Card Reference). SKE49566.

<7> Roebuck, J., 2002, St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury (Monograph). SKE30293.

<8> Sherlock, D. & Woods, B. A., 1988, St. Augustine's Abbey: Report on Excavations, 1960-78 (Monograph). SKE30287.

<9> Tatton-Brown, T., 1985, Three Great Benedictine Houses in Kent: Their Buildings & Topography (Article in serial). SKE8094.

<10> John Newman, 1969, The Buildings of England: North East and East Kent (Monograph). SKE7874.

<11> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

Sources and further reading

Related records