Place the main gate where two separate positions can watch it, approach it by a winding path so a vehicle cannot run at it, and mark a waiting point 20-30 m outside it where visitors are seen and spoken to before they are admitted. Make the gate the strongest point in the barrier, and give the household a second exit that opens from the inside without a key.
Part of Perimeter Defense Design
Gate placement is the choice of where, in which direction and with what approach a gate opens through a barrier line, since the gate decides how well the rest of the boundary works.
The Gate Is Where The Perimeter Is Decided
An intruder tests the weakest point, and a gate is a hole that has to be closed and opened every day. The parent article gives the rules: cover the primary gate from at least two observation positions, make visitors follow a winding approach so a vehicle cannot ram it, include a greeting area 20-30 m from the gate where visitors are spoken to and observed before admission, and build the gate as the strongest point in the barrier, reinforced disproportionately.
Each of these rules has a practical consequence for where the gate goes.
What You Need
- Two observation points with different angles on the gate, so that one blind spot is covered by the other.
- A site where the approach can bend, using the ditch, hedge or terrain, as in Channeling Approach Routes.
- A marker for the waiting point: a post or stone.
- A second exit. See Inner Hardened Zone.
Method: Site The Gate, Then Shape The Approach
Step 1: Choose the side. Face the gate toward the path people already use, not toward the most dangerous approach; do not put it at the end of a straight road. The best site is slightly uphill from the approach, so visitors are visible as they come.
Step 2: Put the observation points on either side, one overlooking the gate and one with a view of the lane. Make sure the sun, when low, does not shine into the lookouts’ eyes.
Step 3: Bend the approach with a berm, hedge or ditch so the last stretch is not a straight run. A cart can still pass; a vehicle cannot gather speed.
Step 4: Mark the waiting point 20-30 m from the gate. Test where a normal speaking voice is understood on a still day and set the post at that distance. At a walking pace of about 5 km/h (1.4 m/s, a figure I am recalling and not reading from this corpus), 20-30 m takes a visitor 14-21 seconds.
Step 5: Make the gate strong and the exits safe. An inward-opening main gate cannot be pushed open from outside, and the household opens it by pulling. Add a smaller, outward-opening emergency gate or breakaway panel elsewhere, openable from inside with one hand and no key.
Step 6: Light and mark. A pole lantern or lamp near the waiting point lets the warden see faces.
Worked Example: The Time The Layout Buys
From the waiting point to the gate, 20-30 m at 1.4 m/s is 20 ÷ 1.4 = 14.3 s to 30 ÷ 1.4 = 21.4 s. A bend adds length: if the last 20 m of straight approach is replaced by a path that doubles back and covers 40 m, the time rises to 40 ÷ 1.4 = 28.6 s. The gain is small for people, which is the point: the bend is there to stop vehicles and to hold a group in view, not to delay a walker.
Common Mistakes
- Putting the gate where nobody can see it. The two-position rule is not decoration.
- A gate that opens only outward and cannot be barred. An inward-opening leaf resists a push from outside; an outward-opening one needs a heavy bar. This trade-off is about a compound gate, where the household controls the opening at its own pace — it does not apply to the emergency panel, which is the route people leave by in a hurry and must therefore open by pushing, with nothing to lift or unbar. Bar the main leaf; never bar the escape panel.
- A bright lamp at the gate that blinds your own lookout. A light that preserves your night vision is a different design from one that illuminates the visitor: shade it so it lights the waiting point and not your post.
- A single gate. In a fire it is the only exit.
Safety
The gate is the fire exit
Whatever you do to make the main gate strong, check that someone inside can get out in the dark in a few seconds, and rehearse it. A wicket or panel that is pinned shut for security and cannot be released from inside kills the household that built it. Lamps at a gate are a fire risk: follow Lamp Fire Prevention.
What’s Next
- Learn next: Visitor Protocols — the routine at the waiting point
- Combine with: Watch and Patrol Scheduling — who watches the gate, and when