Solid plate leaves under an S-curved top rail that rises out of each stone pier and crests over the centre joint. Each leaf carries two tall panels framed and arch-headed to follow that curve above a low rail, with two squared short panels beneath — no infill and no ornament, in an even black finish. Hung between rough-cut stone piers at the head of a cobbled drive.
There is nothing to look through here, so all of the drawing is done in relief: each panel sits inside a raised frame, and the arch cut into every panel head repeats the sweep of the top rail four times across the pair. The mid rail is set low, which keeps the weight at the bottom and leaves the curve to carry the eye.
Privacy comes with the plate, and that is the reason to choose this one — a gate that screens like a wall and still swings open. The trade is that it carries itself on shape alone, so it wants stone either side and a short approach, where it is read close up rather than as a black rectangle down a long drive. A shorter leaf in the same profile can hang on the pier alongside, as photographed here.
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Every angle
