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Monument Types

• TOWN WALL (MEDIEVAL - 1066 AD to 1539 AD (between))
• TOWN WALL (POST MEDIEVAL - 1540 AD to 1900 AD (between))

Associated Events

• Sidbury Gate (Ref: WCM100042)
• 71 Sidbury (Ref: WCM100043)
• Barn to rear 61 Sidbury (Ref: WCM100044)
• 31 Sidbury (Clapton's Bakery) (Ref: WCM100045)
• Sidbury Excavation (49-55 Friar Street = 23-29 Sidbury) (Ref: WCM100154)
• 49-55 Friar Street (Ref: WCM100155)
• Rear of 49-55 Friar Street (Ref: WCM100156)
• 37, 49-55 Friar Street (Ref: WCM100186)
• City Wall, Sidbury (Ref: WCM100188)
• 37, 49-55 Friar Street (Ref: WCM100198)
• Sidbury City Wall (Ref: WCM100204)
• 61 Sidbury (Ref: WCM100462)
• City wall (Ref: WCM100509)
• 37, 49-55 Friar Street (Ref: WCM100525)
• King's Head (Ref: WCM100785)
• Friar Street (cinema) project (Ref: WCM100810)
• 37 Friar Street (Ref: WCM100811)
• City Wall (Ref: WCM100952)
• City wall, 37-55 Friar Street (Ref: WCM101048)

Full description

Length of medieval city wall, now demolished above ground.

Arrangements were made during construction of City Walls Road for preservation of the lower courses of the wall, and cracking in the road surface, visible in 2003, may represent differential settlement over the wall remains {5}.

This stretch of wall has been investigated on numerous occasions, the earliest records being by Shearer (WCM 100045) and McNair (WCM 100188) in 1959 and by Hirst in 1975 (WCM 100156).

Records of parts of the S end of the wall, close or adjacent to Sidbury Gate, have been made in 1907 (WCM 100042), 1980 (WCM 100462), 1985 (WCM 100043) and 2001 (WCM 100785).

A trench was cut at right-angles to the city wall by Shearer in 1959 (WCM 100045), who found that its foundations had cut into an earlier clay bank (WCM 96140). The wall itself was of one period of construction, and was dated by the excavator on the basis of stratified ceramics to the mid 14th century or later, and the preceding bank to the late 12th century or later {1}.

In 1975 an eighty metre length of the wall was 'partly demolished' for the construction of the City Walls Road. It was recorded by Hirst (WCM 100156) and photographed both sides. The wall had the usual battered plinth, but with another one higher up; at the same (higher) level was a shelf on the inside face. The wall core, where cut through for the road construction, was said to be of 'coursed stone' rather than the usual rubble. It was mostly constructed of red sandstone but with some green, 'and some re-used carved stone, including some Bathstone, with limewashed or carved surfaces turned inwards'. The outer face had been grouted. Hirst also recorded a 40-metre long north-south section at an acute angle behind the wall. This showed the construction cut for the wall cutting the ‘pre-wall bank’ (WCM 96140) dated by Hirst to the later 13th century or later. 14th-15th-century pottery in dumped material containing sandstone and mortar inclusions was suggested to be associated with the construction of this stretch of the masonry wall. The wall was cut through by a passageway in the late post-medieval period {2}.

The wall was surveyed by Bennett in 1973 (WCM 100509, trench XV, 16/21). This stretch had unusual features: two buttresses, and the extra plinth (see above). The buttresses were butted against the wall fabric at the bottom, bonded in at the top, and were constructed of re-used material, including architectural fragments. Bennett interpreted these features as evidence of a design change following subsidence during the primary construction {3}, though they seem more likely to have represented late medieval or post-Reformation opportunistic repairs that were otherwise undetectable in the fabric.

Continues to N as WCM 96103 (short standing section at rear of Vue cinema), to S joins Sidbury Gate (WCM 96101). Ditch here is WCM 96135.

Sources and further reading

Related records

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