My favourite gate

Just past Chemainus Farms, heading up River Road toward Highway 1, there’s a gate that always intrigues me. It seems as much an invitation as a prohibition, because it’s centred at the entrance to a green, but has no surrounding fence to prevent curious wanderers and wonderers from simply stepping round it and carrying on. Is it meant to keep people in or out? Is it a remnant from a bygone time when livestock had to be penned in? Does it serve a present purpose—other than to excite speculative imaginings? What’s its story?