File:York Water Gate in Victoria Embankment Gardens.jpg

English: The Grade II listed 1626 monumental gateway of York Water Gate, built and designed by Nicholas Stone, the design also attributed to Sir Balthazar Gerbier, at the west of Victoria Embankment Gardens, beside the River Thames in the City of Westminster, London, England. The Gate was the water access from the Thames to York House in The Strand. text from:

'York House', in Survey of London: Volume 18, St Martin-in-The-Fields II: the Strand, ed. G H Gater and E P Wheeler (London, 1937), pp. 51-60. [1]

"The York Water Gate embodies in itself more than the common freakishness of such survivals. It was built for the Duke of Buckingham in 1626, two years after York House had ceased to belong to the Archbishop of York; it was built to form a suitable approach to the new residence which Buckingham planned to erect on the site of York House, but it is the only part of that edifice which we can be quite certain really materialised, and after serving for many years as a water approach to the houses on the Buckingham estate, it is now left high and dry 150 yards from the river. The gateway is generally acknowledged to be a most successful architectural composition, but its present setting in the Embankment Gardens does not show it to the best advantage. It is of Portland stone, and is usually said to have been erected from the designs of Inigo Jones, though some doubt is cast on this statement by an entry in the note-book of Nicholas Stone under the heading "Some of the Eminent Workes that my uncle Mr. Nickolas Stone Senior did in England …"; "The water Gate att Yorke House hee desined and built, and the Right hand Lion hee did frontting the Thames, Mr. Kearne a Jarman, his brother by marying his sister did the shee Lion." The structure on plan comprises three bays, the centre containing the passageway with steps leading down from York Terrace to the level of the old landing-stage by the water's edge. The lateral walls to the side bays are each pierced by arched openings and further divided by a central column between a balustrading formed of turned-wood balusters. The south or river front, which has a rusticated surface, consists of a central archway between two small openings and is divided by attached banded Doric columns supporting the entablature. The central portion, which is raised and treated as a segmental pediment with an escallop contains a carved cartouche bearing the arms of the Villiers family, encircled by the riband of the Garter and surmounted by a ducal coronet. Above each of the side bays is seated a lion holding a carved shield with an anchor representing Buckingham's admiralship. The north front has a plain ashlar face divided by four pilasters supporting the entablature and surmounted by large spheres on pedestals. The Villiers' motto" "Fidei coticula curx" is inscribed upon the frieze, while the key stones to the three arched openings contain carved cartouches extending to the frieze. The middle one bears the arms of Villiers impaling Manners, and the other two a representation of an anchor. The side elevations have banded columns and general surface treatment in conformity with the south front. The gateway, which is the property of the Council, has been scheduled as an ancient monument. "

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