The Golden Gates, Warrington

These spectacular gates are not a sight you would expect to see in Warrington. The first time I saw them I was completely taken aback.

The Grade II listed gates were made by the Coalbrookdale works at Ironbridge for the International Exhibition in 1862 and then intended for Queen Victoria's Sandringham home in Norfolk. The queen was meant to see them for the first time at the exhibition but there was a statue of Oliver Cromwell visible behind the gates so courtiers directed her away from them.  

The works had difficulty selling them until local iron master and Warrington councillor Joseph Monks heard about them and thought they would make a fitting entrance for the town hall which had been converted from a Georgian mansion in 1870. The gates were officially opened in June 1895.

It looks better large.