Third Gate

The location of the Third Gate within the Orfalch Echor (not to scale)

The third of the Seven Gates of Gondolin that guarded the high and narrow pass of the Orfalch Echor leading through the Encircling Mountains to Turgon's Hidden City. The first two Gates were of Wood and Stone, so the Third Gate was the first to be made of metal (as indeed were all of the following Gates). It stood only a short way along the Orfalch from the Second Gate, the Gate of Stone, and led through a high wall. The Gate itself was made of bronze, heavily hung with bronze plates and shields, marked with strange signs.

Above the Third Gate, surmounting its wall, stood three towers, each roofed in copper that shone with a strange red light, reflecting lamps set along the wall's top. Like each of the other Gates, the Third Gate had its own dedicated company of guards, in this case taken mostly from the native Sindar of Nevrast who had joined Turgon's Noldor when they removed to Gondolin. It was traditional for the Sindar to bear axes, and these were the weapons borne by the guards of the Gate of Bronze.

Together the first three Gates of Gondolin held the western part of the long pass, but after the Third Gate the road to Gondolin began a long upward climb through the Mountains, and it was a long and difficult journey from the Third Gate to the Fourth, known as the Gate of Writhen Iron.