Secler Gate (Monument) 5 Satu Mare

Writing on the door-mirror: “This gate was built with help of God by Ilonka Sándor and his wife Pál Mária on Mai 16^th 1914”

By definition it is a big hooded, bonded, mostly decorated gate. But these gates are not only at Seklerland. This name was spread all over the world because most of these gates are at Seklerland, and here are the fanciest ones, and still exist the tradition of mounting Sekler gates. Its main characteristic is that it has a functioning role, its structure has permanent markings. These are the followings: dichotomous – it has an entrance for people (gateway), the other one for carriage and hay cart, the gateway was always on that side which was near the house, the three piles are bounded with a yoke, the whole structure is braced with a special binding, called angle-brace. It is a bounded structure, from this becomes the name Bounded-gates. It has pigeon-hole roofings, covered with lacy-shingle. The door-leafs are planked, or planked below and lathed above.

The gates at Odorhei District are more decorated than the ones at Csík District or Háromszék District, and this is the main distinctive character that makes them different from others. The gate can be column-decorated, or decorated with convex bines, or with carved floral ornaments.

The simplest type is the bounded undecorated gate. Its artistic value is given by the carpentry work. Structurally it is like the carved seklergates, but it doesn't have any ornaments. The door-mirror is simply plaited, or gridded, there is no pigeon-whole roof. On the gate it is carved just the house number and the mounting date. Only on the special binding (angle-brace) is carved a sun-rose. These gates were made by every farmer for themselves. The other type is the partially-carved gates. They have the same structure, the surface is decorated with curved flower ornaments, which are painted too. On their simply way there are masterpieces.

The most frequent type is the convex bine decorated carved gates. The most decorated and colored seklergates are between Székelyudvarhely (Odorheiu Secuiesc) and Szentegyháza (Vlăhiţa). In the village they are called tawdry, written or figurate gates.