STAG GATE

CHARBOROUGH PARK, WAREHAM, DORSET

THE five-legged stag stands atop a gate leading into the 2,000-acre estate owned since Elizabethan times by the Drax family.

A commonly held theory as to why the stag gained an extra limb is that when viewed from Charborough House the animal appeared only to have three legs and the family demanded it be given with another but the prosaic truth was to make it more secure.

Stag Gate was constructed by John Sawbridge Erle Drax in 1841. He was also responsible for the lion which stands at another entrance to the estate.

Stag Gate forms part of a three mile wall containing more than two million bricks.