West Gate, Penel Orlieu

Bridgwater’s West Gate was more or less in the centre of the busy Broadway crossroads. This seems to have been the grandest of the four gates, and in 1299 Richard Maidus built himself a dwelling above it, on the condition that he would have to give it up in the event of any military activity.

West Gate
West Gate shown on the 1735 town plan. The L-shaped block to the south o the word ‘west’ is now the course of the Broadway. The blue plaque is erected on the building below the ‘g’ on gate.

The gates were largely ceremonial rather than overtly defensive; Bridgwater had no town walls but rather relied on the garden walls of the individual houses, as well as a series of ditches and brooks acting as a defence, to mark the boundary of the town and to drain the surrounding wetland. The four gates underlined the importance, the prosperity and high standing of the borough. However, the town quickly outgrew the boundaries set down by gates and ditches, and extensive development had taken place by about 1300 along West Street and North Street in the West and along what is now Monmouth Street in the East.

The Westgate led to the extensive castle estates of Haygrove, with the Quantocks beyond, but also the settlement of Kidsbury and beyond that the village of Wembdon. The Westgate was removed at the turn of the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries in order to widen the road. The old West Street area was demolished int he 1960s for a new planned development, including the Westfield tower.

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