I don't want to make it sound like I'm attacking Gary Rhodes' book, because I am greatly enjoying it and am astounded by much of the new information he has managed to dig up. However, I can't understand why he continues to insist that the gate that shows up in the bicycling bobby scene and the later scene when Van Helsing & Harker see Renfield heading toward the Abbey is not a cemetery gate, but instead is the gate to Carfax Abbey. Where did he get this idea?

The shooting script doesn't mention a gate in the scene with the bobby, but does note that the action takes place near a churchyard (scene direction for scene F-13) where Lucy was buried. And as Rhodes acknowledges, the script indicates that Van Helsing & Harker are standing near the cemetery gate when they spot Renfield in scene H-18. But Rhodes insists that the cemetery set was never built and that the gate to Carfax Abbey has been forced into service for both scenes. He even states that Melford was forced to use the Carfax Abbey gate as a stand-in for the cemetery gate in the scene where we hear Lucy's scream as she is being staked. What makes him so sure that the gate we see is to Carfax Abbey, rather than the churchyard?

Is it simply because we see no gravestones in the background? The gate could still be to the cemetery, even if the gravestones are too far back for us to see. Besides, nothing in the script suggests that Carfax Abbey even has a gate. And what would be so unusual about a churchyard being close to an Abbey anyway?

Maybe I missed something here, but I'm not catching why Gary is so sure the gate we see doesn't lead to the churchyard?