History of High gate

The High gate was originally one of the 4 gates, which where the part of the town´s fortifications. In 1471 the town got the permission from the king to fortify itself with brick walls. The realization of the fact has occured in 1516 (construction of the Prague´s gate), then started the building of the High gate at the north side of the town, in the 1526 was founded Svatojilská gate on the west side and finally the Lubenská gate was done at the south side (last two gates weren´t preserved). After finalization of the gates the fortification walls started to be build, but before it was comleted the medivial conception of fortification was already obsolete. Therefore the comlete fortification of the town was never fully finished. Predecessor of the High gate was so called The tower gate, which most likely was located about 200m more to the west.

Within the building of the new fortification the place for the new gate was selected in the highest point of castle line. For better protection of the town and better control of potencional adversary the townsmen decided to build massive and sufficiently high gate. Mansory gates reached 31.3 metres and with the roof the height was 46 metres in total. Construction was started in 1518 and completed in 1525 by rendering the whole building. Construction work was under the supervision of the parler Vít, but due to the complexity of the building the project and work management were given to master Jan Chochola from Prague. Who was replaced in 1521 by master Pavel from Louny probably due to disagreements with the board of Rakovnicko.