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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

• 37, 49-55 Friar Street (Ref: WCM100186)
• 37, 49-55 Friar Street (Ref: WCM100198)
• City wall (Ref: WCM100508)
• City wall (Ref: WCM100509)
• 37, 49-55 Friar Street (Ref: WCM100525)
• Friar Street (cinema) project (Ref: WCM100810)
• 37 Friar Street (Ref: WCM100811)
• City Wall (Ref: WCM100952)
• 31 - 33 Friar Street (Ref: WCM100983)
• City wall, 37-55 Friar Street (Ref: WCM101048)
• 31 - 33 Friar Street - watching brief (Ref: WCM101104)

Protected Status

• Listed Building

Full description

Length of standing city wall at rear of 33-39 Friar Street (cinema site and adjacent property to N), partly primary fabric, partly re-used materials on the line of the city wall.

Inspection (by NJB) in early 2001 showed four visible courses of masonry comprising the battered plinth, below current (City Walls Road) ground level, with up to c.1.5m of sandstone masonry above. The sandstone masonry supported a wall of 1930s concrete and a modern brick boundary wall (both demolished and replaced by a new brick wall in 2003). Interrupted over a c.4m length by a brick shed, the wall fabric continues to the north as a property boundary, of 2-5 courses of sandstone, one block thick and re-built.

This monument incorporates the change of direction from north-south to south-east (the re-entrant angle) noted by Barker {1}.

This part of the city wall was investigated by Bennett in 1973 (WCM 100508, 16/20, trench XIV). At that time it stood to a maximum height of 2.5m above the lowest plinth course; the plinth itself varied from four courses at the north end of the trench to five at the south end, an extra chamfered course being introduced at the base {2}.

This section of wall was investigated and recorded in detail during the evaluations (1997-9) and watching-brief on the Warner Village Cinema site (WCM 100198, WCM 100525, area 2). Masonry: two medieval phases were identified: a primary construction phase associated with pale brown/cream crumbly mortar; and a secondary repair phase associated with re-used masonry, brown mortar, and inaccurate coursing. Two phases of Civil War repair were identified by the investigators: the first being occasional single-stone repairs of artillery damage in 1646, the second being larger-scale but poor quality rebuilding with re-used sandstone and hand-made bricks less than two inches deep. Suggested by the excavators to date to 1651-2, pre-dating Cromwellian destruction down to an alleged uniform standing height of c.1.5 metres above external ground level.

Associated deposits: excavation within the wall (trench 12) contacted the alleged pre-City Wall bank (WCM 96140) and suggested that it was a post-wall feature. The narrow construction cut for the city wall fabric contained 13th-century pottery {3}.

Wall continues to S as WCM 96102 (demolished, below City Walls Road) and to N as WCM 96104 (demolished, below pavement etc). Ditch here is WCM 96135.

Sources and further reading

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