The Monastery Gate and Wall Walkway

I am called the Monastery Gate (Klosterpforte), as well as the Great Monastery Gate or even as the New Nun’s Gate, but I actually could by right and honour bear the name of Wilhelm Neumann’s Gate. 

The son of a merchant from Mecklenburg, Wilhelm Neumann had a wonderful brain, a self-taught historian and architect, he contributed a great deal to the history of Reval, and also Riga, that would be known and valued. I was built at the end of the 19th century, according to the designs of Neumann, when the Suur-Kloostri or Great Monastery Street was being established.

The sharp pointed neo-Gothic gate, with two pedestrian gates, was broken through into the section of the old wall, between the Nun’s and Sauna Towers, so the traffic between the Old Town and Baltic Station would flow more freely. It became apparent that the demolition of the great Nun’s Gate complex, at the location of the current Nunne Street, did not ensure its anticipated capacity. It was completely demolished already a few years before 1870, when trains from St. Petersburg began operating to Reval.