Close Gate

Close Gate (aka Closegate) on the Town Walls was one of the principal points of entry to Newcastle during Medieval times. In the 18th century the tower served as a a temporary prison, until the upper courses of the gateway were dismantled in 1797. This retrospective 19th century engraving depicts it as a three storey rectangular building containing a central archway.

The levelled and buried remains of Close Gate are located on the flat land at the bottom of the slope beneath The Close. The foundations and buried remains of the gate  are part of a Scheduled Monument, which also includes an upstanding section of the Town Wall, near Hanover Street, and the site of Water Tower.

The Close Gate evidently derived its name from the street called the Close. After the fall of the Tyne Bridge in 1771, its tower was converted into a temporary prison. In 1797, it was taken down; the gateway being narrow, awkward, and dangerous. There was a turret, or tower, 52 yards to the south of this gate, and adjoining to the river. It was once the meeting-house of the House Carpenters' Company, and afterwards of the Sailmakers. From the Close Gate, there were an hundred and forty steps, on the top of the wall, as it mounts a very steep hill to White Friar Tower.

Extract from Eneas Mackenzie, Historical Account of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Including the Borough of Gateshead. Mackenzie and Dent, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1827.