Hamilton Low Parks

NS75NW 7 7284 5613

(NS 7284 5613) Gateway (NAT)

OS 6" map (1910)

An arched gateway which was intended for a garden of Hamilton Palace (NS75NW 16) but was never used for that purpose. It is preserved because of its age (it is believed to be 200 years old) and beauty.

Name Book 1859

This solitary arch, in the Palace grounds, is known as the "Bishop's Gate". In pre-Reformation times Hamilton was the appropriate prebend of the Dean of Glasgow, and this gate was the entrance to the deanery which afterwards became the manse of Thomas Hamilton of Bothwell, a friend of John Knox. Though known as the Bishop's Gate, it is more properly the "Dean's Gate", and is all that remains of the deanery or old manse of the church (NS75NW 13).

A G Millar 1941

Hamilton Burgh Surveyor states that this was a free-standing arch and there was no evidence for it ever having been part of a building. It was removed by the Town Council about 1925; its date of erection is uncertain (Hamilton burgh surveyor). He also showed a 19th century painting of the arch, and from its rather ornate features and structural condition, it did not seem very ancient. Mr Ironside (architect, Hamilton Estate Office) agrees that this was an isolated arch. It may, however, have been a gateway in a surrounding wall. No traces of it now exist, the site being covered by a rubbish tip.

Visited by OS (JLD) 21 December 1953.