Venkatarangan TNC

A different Gate Latch

Common Aldrop Model (shown here in Brass) I was in Bangalore the other day, there I saw a different type of Aldrop used to lock the main gate in one of the house - don't ask me why I noticed it!.

Normally the Aldrops (which are bolt latches with a provision for putting a padlock) will be vertical and you lift the handle and move it sideways (mostly right hand side to open) with the padlock in vertical orientation. This one that I saw was oriented differently - you lifted the latch up and down vertically with the padlock in horizontal (lying down) position. Thinking hard with my little brain I couldn't figure out the advantage of this model - please post in the comments if you know the advantage.

While writing this post I had to find out the name of this device, I was wondering whether to call it Gate Latch or Bolt Latch or Gate Bolt. After few searches I found an item in Amazon with the name "Aldrop", then after few more searches confirmed that this is how it is called in India.