Gates, NY-Watergate – not the arc de Triomphe, and the only surviving part of a luxurious mansion, which was installed on the strand. They show, how did the Thames and it was in the previous century. Now the gates are in the Victoria embankment gardens, 137 metres from the water (on the corner Beckingham street and Watergate walk), and before they went straight into the river.

When the York house was built (not later 1237), the Thames was much wider than today, there were even Islands. Stored in the Museum of London painting Henry Peter "the York Watergate and the Adelphi from the river, by moonlight" shows that to get to York house through the gate directly from the boat or vehicle – stops, of which now there are only three were in the water. Gates, erected much later than the house, about 1626, were a kind of pier.

York house, built as the London home of the Archbishop of Norwich, frequently changed owners. The most famous was George Villiers, first Duke Beckingham the one. On the facade of the gate you can still see its coat of arms. Fans of "the Three Musketeers" Dumas represent Bekingema in love with Anna Austrian noble knight. George Villiers, who was considered the most handsome man of Europe, was indeed erected in the knights, but not only. The son of a poor nobleman, who fell to the court of James I, Villiers for eight years, received the titles of Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquis, and finally Duke – all because you became beloved favorite of the king.

Monarch Bekingema loved, and the people and the Parliament, accusing it of unleashing wars and treason) hated. Revealing the text of a leaflet that had once hung on the street: "Who rules the country? King. Who rules the king? Duke. Who rules the Duke? Devil".

In 1628 army officer John Felton killed Bekingema in Portsmouth. Throughout the country began riotous jubilation on the streets of London were burning bonfires. Arrested Felton drove to the capital, people ran to see him, mother-raised infants and they looked at "the deliverer of England, and when Felton arrived in London, people have believed the murderer of the saints. Three months later he was hanged at Tyburn.

The mansion in which literary Beckingham discovers that two pendants of cut, not preserved during construction in 1865-70, Victoria embankment had to narrow down the Thames and carry a lot of expensive homes. Preserved only the gate of the York Watergate. Their elegant facade is one of the few remaining in London reminders about the Italian style of the court of Charles I. this suggests that built the gate of a follower of the Italian masters Inigo Jones.