House and Garden 
gate, which was usually placed immediately 
in front of the house steps. In the gates of 
the Dessessure house we find this different 
treatment and 
the carriage 
gate, as usual, 
is Hanked by a 
smaller gate on 
each side, one 
for the family 
and the other 
for servants. 
T h e most 
splendid v i s i- 
tors’ gate in 
Charleston 
(and there is 
always a hell 
at the visitors’ 
gate, remem¬ 
ber) belongs to 
the Simonton 
house on La- 
gare Street, a 
quaint narrow 
thoroughfare 
leading from 
the heart of the 
city to the sea, 
which rivals 
the Battery as 
J 
a fashionable 
residence sec¬ 
tion. The Simonton gardens are enclosed by 
a brick wall, ten feet high, which is broken 
immediately in front of the house by a 
wrought iron gate which swings between 
two noble columns of white sandstone. 
Charleston abounds in interesting wrought 
iron work, much of which rivals the best 
things of Queen Anne’s reign. Some of the 
simpler work, too, such as is found through 
the East Bay Street section, is of the highest 
value in that it is original. The best iron 
work in Charleston, notably tbe gate of St. 
Michael’s Churchyard, is said to be the 
work of a certain German by the name of 
Werner, who lived the simple, unpretending 
life of the true 
artist there and 
left no f a m e 
behind him but 
an enduring 
monument of 
good works. 
A simpler ex- 
a m p 1 e of an 
iron gateway 
is found on 
Church Street, 
overgrown 
with Virginia 
creeper. 
Wherever 
gateways flour¬ 
ish, of course, 
walls abound. 
Those of 
Charleston are 
not surpassed 
in America in 
style or variety. 
T h e panelled 
brick wall, 
rough cast, is 
most often 
seen, topped 
with wooden 
balustrades or iron fencing either wrought 
or cast. The skill and ingenuity with 
which columns of brick are made to resem¬ 
ble columns of stone is interesting—but, 
then, the whole of Charleston is interest¬ 
ing. Its Georgian houses, its second storey 
drawing-rooms, with their panelled walls 
and high mantels, and the social life 
that obtains there which, to this day, 
reflects the domestic ideals which have 
never passed away—and probably never 
will—in England. 
SIMONTON GATEWAY 
250 
