Gates and Railings, Trinity College (College Green)

The entrance gateway of Trinity College, on College Green, was erected around 1860. Richard Turner designed and cast the railings and gates; his father, Timothy Turner, had made decorative ironwork for the interiors of several college buildings. It is the main gateway in the college boundary, on its west side.

Richard Turner (c. 1798-1881), a Dublin ironfounder and builder, bought a large site in Ballsbridge to build a foundry, the Hammersmith Ironworks, which opened in 1834 and specialised in building glasshouses.

The gateway has double-leaf cast-iron gates for vehicles, with foliage decoration at the base and spear finials. It is flanked by square piers of openwork cast iron on granite plinths, decorated with leafy finials, crests, egg-and-dart and leaf-and-dart ornament, and crowned with globe lamps; curving cast-iron buttresses support them.

Matching railings, with openwork piers topped by anthemions and with curved brackets, stand on a plinth wall of carved ashlar granite. Ashlar granite piers with recessed panels end the composition. The entrance passage is lined with cast- and wrought-iron railings, with wrought-iron gates for pedestrians.

The layout is symmetrical, and fine, carefully worked materials enhance it, especially in the piers carrying globe lamps. The granite bases link the entrance with the street and with the college buildings within.

The gateway can be seen from College Green, where it gives access to the college. Guided walking tours of the campus start from the Bell Tower in Front Square, entered from College Green.