Dorset gate

We've been here 12 years in August; 10 years ago, or so, MrL saw fit to make a driveway out of a very traditional grass front garden, straight path to the front door, white picket gate, grass on either side, flowerbed between grass and path on both sides. I would have preferred to keep it as it was, but he wanted the car off the road; not that it was on the road- we have a wide paviored parking sapce between us, the pavement and the road, but there you go.
Here we are, said almost 10 years later, still no gate. I went to a garden club talk in another village many years back, where one of the slides was of a Dorset gate. I made up my mind there and then to have one when we got around to having a gate. We got a quot at a local show for one, came in at some £800+.
One person, who shall remain nameless, promsied a quote for making one, but nothing materialised.
Today, on the spur of the moment, we went to a local timber place, where they make sheds, gates, etc etc; a good, long standing local company, I asked for a price list for gates, expecting the same sort of standard 5 bar gate that eg Mole Valley Farmers, garden centres, etc have. Turned the page over, and there it was. Dorset gate. Less than half the price of the quote I got. We didn;t order it there and then ( ) as we need to measure exactly, and the space between the hanging posts, then we get it made to order.
How excited am I? It's a proper traditional, local, Dorset gate, in the vernacular. What more could you ask from a gate?

This is a Dorset gate:



The bars are galvansied steel; some folks paint them black, but ours will be left as they are.
Benningfield had a lovely drawing in one of his books of a Dorset gate too. Speaking to the chap from the company, he said that although there is a some current interest in them, they are few and far between; the estates and farms don't use them - cost, maybe? I love to think I'll have a real and proper gate for our cottage soon. Nothing else will do.