Richard III's Medieval Leicester
Newarke Gateway
The Newarke Gateway and the Richard III Story
After his defeat at the Battle of Bosworth, King Richard III's corpse was brought back to Leicester and put on public display in the Newarke religious precinct as indisputable proof that the former monarch was dead. After three days his body was removed by the Grey Friars and buried in their own church. It is likely that Richard's body would have passed through this gateway on his final journey to Greyfriars.
At the time of King Richard III, the Newarke area was a religious precinct enclosed by a substantial stone wall. This gateway, built around 1410, would have been its monumental entrance known then as the Newarke Gateway. It was built to impress visitors and house the porter's lodge.
What would the Newarke area have looked like in the time of Richard III?
As a visitor to Leicester Castle, Richard III would have been familiar with the Newarke religious precinct adjoining it. The Newarke was a religious college containing a chantry house, priest's houses, the Church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, an almshouse and hospital. Newarke is a corruption of "New Work", describing the construction activity as the precinct was built.
What survives of the Newarke
precinct today?
Today, the Newarke Gateway has been renamed the Magazine Gateway in reference to its use during the English Civil War as a gunpowder and weapons store. The other gateway into the precinct, the Turret Gateway, also remains, as does a small section of the original boundary wall in the gardens of Newarke Houses Museum. All that remains of the medieval hospital is its stone chapel, now part of De Montfort University's Trinity Building.
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