| Description: | [Based on Blaylock 1995, Chapter 1, pp. 2-3; Chapter 2, pp. 10-12; and Chapter 3, pp. 33-4.] From the second quarter of the 14th century the documentary sources begin to provide evidence for the city's expenditure on the defences, especially in the Receiver's Accounts, where information survives in great detail. Despite the wealth of detail in the accounts it is rarely possible certainly to identify any documented work in the fabric itself. The addition of the series of semicircular towers to the circuit of the walls took place largely in the 13th century (cf. Monument No’s 11078; 11062-73 incl.), although occasional features suggests a later date, most notably at the so-called Lollard's Tower, which could date to the early 14th century (i.e. before the beginning of the surviving records; although no proper study of this fabric has been carried out; see Monument No. 11072). Substantial amounts of rebuilding are documented at non-specific locations, or places where no fabric survives, in: 1360-61 (‘making the wall at North Gate’: 60s); 1386-87 (‘making ‘’le pale’’ next to West Gate’: £6 18s 10d); 1398-99 (‘repairs next to All Hallows on the Walls’: £5 1s 11d); 1409-10 and 1411-12 (repairs to the walls outside South Gate); 1480-81: repair of the city wall from the West Gate as far as Snayle Tower); 1492-93 (repairs to the wall next to Snayle Tower); 1500-01 (‘on the south side of West Gate’: £31 16s 6d); 1527-28 (‘in the south part of West Gate’: £29 3s 11d); 1539-40 (‘next to the church of All Hallows on the Walls’: £170). There are also many other documented repairs, of smaller dimensions or lower cost.
The later middle ages saw additions to the gates, especially the rebuilding or extension of the East and South gates (see Monument No’s 11197 and 11138) and the rebuilding of a considerable length of wall on the south-west side of the circuit at Cricklepit Street (Monument No. 11158). Typical medieval facework also employed squared blocks of volcanic trap in neat courses; often with a chamfered plinth (Blaylock 1995, Pls 45-50), and invariably with putlog holes marking the levels of scaffolding lifts at intervals of approximately 1.25-1.4m (presumably the height to which a mason could comfortably work, or above which the lifting of blocks became a struggle). One detail in which the medieval facework contrasts with Roman masonry is that the courses are invariable carefully levelled, and where the walls built on a gradient the courses will be horizontal, whereas those of Roman facework tend to follow the gradient. There are references to battlements in the accounts although few such features survive. The rebuilt section at Cricklepit Street was traced by excavation in 1974 and examined more closely by fabric recording in 1985 (section Ext.19.4; Simpson 1993). The masonry is of a style which previously had been thought to be the classic Roman style of the city wall (Burrow 1977, 23-4), comprising smallish squared blocks of volcanic stone over a chamfered plinth, with buttresses and putlog holes in the main face of the wall. Many other sections of the circuit bear similar work, most of it no doubt refacing of the medieval period on Roman core (as was demonstrated in the case of the adjacent build in Cricklepit Street, section Ext.19.3 (Simpson 1993, 7 & 15; Pl. 47). A second occurrence of masonry in this style was seen at the North Gate in 1978 where a section of wall recorded in advance of redevelopment (Site A) comprised Roman rubble core with a medieval facing of volcanic blocks including a double chamfered plinth stepping down towards the south-west (Blaylock 1988, Fig. 3; REN 69). There are also other sections with similar details at Northernhay Gardens (Blaylock 1995, 44; 54, sections Ext. 4.6 and 7.1); Northernhay Street (ibid., 57; 60; sections Ext. 8.3 and 9.3-9.4); Bartholomew Street (ibid., 67; section Ext. 13.1); Friernhay (ibid., 69; section Ext. 14.5); Rackclose Lane (ibid., 73; section Ext. 18.2); Quay Lane (ibid., 78; 80; sections Ext. 20.1, 21.2, and 21.5); Trinity Street (ibid., 85-6; section Ext. 23.5); Southernhay West (ibid., 94-5; 101; sections Ext. 26.1, 26.5, 27.6, and 28.2).
If the section at Cricklepit Street can be dated to the early 15th century, it is significant that it employs little or no Permian breccia (the red stone often called Heavitree stone locally). The first documented occurrence of this stone is a purchase of Whipton stone for the Cathedral in 1341 (Erskine 1983, 263). The stone was not widely used until the end of the 14th century, by which time it appears, for instance, in the inner facework of the top stage of the north tower of the Cathedral which was rebuilt in 1393-5 (Allan 1991, 15). The evidence of the Cricklepit Street builds suggests that its use in the city wall may not have begun until well into the 15th, or even into the 16th century. Although purchases of Whipton stone for the city wall outside East Gate are recorded in the Cathedral Accounts in 1349-50 (Erskine 1983, 284) and the City Accounts mention Whipton in 1372-3 (Miscellaneous Roll 6 m. 14), the first specific purchase of Wonford stone in quantity in the Receiver's Accounts belong to the second half of the 15th century. The use of breccia seems to be universal thereafter, e.g. in the rebuilding of the Guildhall in the 1460s and the rebuilding of Exeter churches in the late 15th century. But the heyday of the use of breccia in the city wall runs from the early to mid 16th century to the late 18th century.
Numerous buttresses existed on the circuit of the wall, although there is no evidence that there was ever a systematic construction of buttresses at regular intervals, such as is implied by some of the post-medieval illustrations of the city (especially, for instance, the Buck brothers’ West Prospect of the city, which shows buttresses at regular intervals in the Bartholomew Street-Friernhay area; REN 4408). About 23 buttresses are known from surviving structures or from the scars in the fabric from which they have been removed; there were certainly more than this number in the past, and some others are know from cartographic or pictorial sources (which, in view of the comments above, must be treated with caution). For instance a buttress to the north west of East Gate, is known from the Chamber Map Book (map 8; REN 4332) and other cartographic sources; this was of unknown date, and was removed c.1820 on the construction of the Assembly rooms (Blaylock 1995, 38). Buttresses divide between those of integral construction with the surrounding fabric, and those abutting or supporting earlier fabric. The new-built section of wall at Cricklepit Street (above) incorporated as many as six integral buttresses, and shows that this style of fabric had them from the beginning; the short section at Rackclose Lane (ibid., 1995, 73; section Ext. 18.2) is work of similar style also originally with integral buttresses. Others at Bartholomew Terrace and Northernhay Street are similar and may also be late medieval. Two buttresses at Bartholomew Terrace, near Snayle Tower are integral to work of period MD3 (see Monument No. 11078). By and large buttresses containing Permian breccia must be counted as late-medieval or later, and in some cases these are certainly post-medieval (those at the Crown and Sceptre Hotel, Blaylock 1995, 65-6; section Ext. 11.4; and at Broadwalk House, Southernhay West (ibid., 93, 96; sections Ext. 25.1, 27.7, 27.9. 27.11). N.B. In discussing the question of buttresses on 23.v.00, we made the decision to put all otherwise unassociated buttresses have been assigned to period MD4 on the grounds that the surviving examples mostly are of Permian breccia, and therefore on grounds of materials cannot be MD3.
The bank behind the wall was retained in use as a means of access onto the wall, and as a line of communication around the circuit. That the bank was regarded as an integral part of the defences is shown by the care with which the city authorities controlled encroachments onto this area (often termed the 'barbican' in the accounts). The principal ditch outside the wall has been seen in part at the East gate, where it was probably c.14m wide and was spanned by a bridge (Nenk et al. 1992, 209; cf. Monument No’s 11081, 11082); a full section of the ditch was excavated at Magdalen Street in 1986, where it avoided the tower and thus in this form must be later than the late 13th century (Monument No. 11140).
Extant: Yes |
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