The Curfew Tower, also known as the Fire Bell Gate, is the surviving 15th-century gatehouse of Barking Abbey — the most complete piece of the medieval complex left after Henry VIII's commissioners stripped the rest. The square stone tower stands on the lane leading from the church to the town centre, and the chapel above the gate still contains a 12th-century stone Rood, one of the very few surviving from before the Reformation.
The Rood — Christ on the cross flanked by the Virgin and St John — is normally locked but can be viewed by arrangement with the parish. Even from the outside, the gate is the most photogenic relic of medieval Barking and worth a five-minute stop on the way to or from the abbey ruins.