SPI - History

We believe that St Mary’s Gate Inn may well have started out as a farm house and perhaps goes back to the mid 13th Century and certainly the older parts of the buildings structure would support this. We have been unable to find any documented evidence on this as there has been very little written history , on the building itself and origin we can only assume St Mary’s Gate was significantly added to during the early 19th Century , and perhaps the farm house was then converted into an Inn. The St. Mary's Gate or Marygate inn in London Road, built in the early 19th century, replaced the Bell or Blue Bell inn by the Marygate itself which the duke of Norfolk had bought in 1795 or 1796 for demolition; the new inn had a bowling green in the mid 19th century.

According to local knowledge Oliver Cromwell stayed in Room 6 , during the English civil war and hence the name has stuck to the room ever since.
A guard who was supposedly killed , whilst guarding Oliver Cromwell when he stayed at St Mary’s Gate Inn.

1823 George Glossop
1840 George Hunt
1859 - 1878 George Hersee
1890 -1905 Alfred James Hersee
1915 Archibald Geo Tee

1904-1921 G S Constable and Sons Ltd, Swallow Brewery, Arundel and Anchor Brewery, Littlehampton.
1921-1955 George Henty and Sons Ltd, Westgate Brewery, Chichester.

Not to be confused with the Inn, the original marygate formed part of the castle, Starting from what was apparently a new gate by the outer ditch of the north bailey of the castle the circuit ran west to a second gate, the Marygate, built across the new London road; the earthwork between the two gates may be the re-used southern defenses of the putative Anglo-Saxon burh, turned to face outwards instead of inwards, and provided with a ditch on the north side which survived in 1995. From the Marygate the line of the new defenses ran south-west, first within the modern castle grounds, and then down Mount Pleasant, Park Place, and School Lane, where a natural cliff was scarped back. Mount Pleasant was known by 1615 as Whitings dyke, possibly from a personal name. A section of earthwork was said to be still visible by the St. Mary's Gate inn in London Road in 1851. At the point where the circuit crossed Maltravers Street was a third gate called the Marshgate or Watergate.
The Marygate may have been damaged in the Civil War, for lead was removed from the roof, apparently by the mayor, before 1652. The upper storey survived in the 1720s, but by 1780 the arch had been taken down as dangerous to users of the London road, apparently the chief means of approach to the town by land. By 1809 the duke of Norfolk had acquired the remains of the gate and before 1815 he restored it in medieval style. Part of the original structure remains on the south side west of the archway, but the present building is mostly 19th-century and later; it is of flint with sandstone dressings, including some flushwork, and has battlements and machicolations on both faces. The portion of wall west of the gate was built of Plymouth rock shortly before 1817. The gate was again restored in the early 20th century.