Waxhouse Gate, High Street
“Welcome, I thought I heard you coming. I’m very good at hearing footsteps. They have been echoing through my archway for the last 600 years.
By the way, I’m the Waxhouse Gate and I here help people go back and forth between the Abbey and the town. I know I look like I was built in the 18th century, but that was just one of my makeovers. I used to be a very grand medieval gateway through the Abbey walls. Old Abbot John of Wheathampstead had me built in 1427 and I might have been even older, but I can’t quite remember.
I know I was knocked down and rebuilt as a shop in 1722, which was a bit of a shame. But underneath me I’ve still got my old foundations – two and a half meters thick.
Do you know how I got my name? Well they used to make candles in the alleyway behind me to sell to the monks and pilgrims coming to see the shrine of St Alban in the Abbey.
Well off you go now, clip clop, clickety clack, I’ve got more footsteps to listen out for.”
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