Great Gate, St John's College

The Great Gate of Saint John’s College displays a heavy oak door beneath a stone arch carved with the arms of Lady Margaret Beaufort. She founded the college in fifteen eleven, and her crest, featuring yales and roses, sits directly above the entrance. When the English Civil War arrived, the college students melted down their silver plate to fund the royalist cause. The parliamentarian soldiers occupied the college soon after, and they used this very gatehouse as a prison for captured royalist officers.