| Summary : The extant remains of the gatehouse at Cleeve Abbey. The gatehouse stands in the south east corner of the courtyard and faces north. It is of two storeys and was built in the 13th century but altered in the 14th and remodelled in the 16th century. The ground floor forms the gate passage, with a broad arch at either end. The northern half of the passage served as a lobby outside the gates for those waiting for access to the precinct. To the west of the lobby was the almonry, and to the east the porter's lodge. The buried remains of the almonry and porter's lodge date to the 14th century. Despite earlier attempts to strengthen the gatehouse, early in the 16th century Abbot Dovell found it necessary to add buttresses to all except the west wall and to rebuild the upper storey completely. The upper storey has lost its floor. This upper storey of the gatehouse is thought to have been used for administrative purposes, and to have been the abbey's court room. Most of the existing walls on the site of the almonry, the blocked doorways in the east and west walls of the upper chamber of the gatehouse and the traces of gabled roofs abutting on its outside walls belong to its post-Dissolution use as a farm building. |