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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

• 25 Angel Place (Ref: WCM101195)

Full description

Almost totally or totally demolished section of medieval city wall; constituent of medieval city defences WCM 96100. Extends to Foregate (WCM 96116) at E end and continues to W (W of Angel Place) as WCM 96118. This stretch includes the alignment of the wall under Angel Place.

Appears on Speed’s map of 1610 and different editions of the '1651' map as a featureless section of wall, save for (in 1651) the Civil War bastion (WCM 96145) located outside in the Angel Place area. Berkeley’s Hospital (WCM 96069) was founded at the eastern end of this section in the infilled ditch (WCM 96139) in the later 17th century, the present hospital ranges dating from 1703. At that time the eastern end of the wall must have been demolished, if it had not already been levelled in the immediate post-Civil War period. The wall line is shown as a continuous property boundary extending west from the hospital by Doharty’s map (1741), Broad’s map (1768) and Young’s map (1779). Broad’s map additionally shows a minor alley running east from Angel Place along the back of the wall to a building built on or against the wall at the rear of an Angel Lane property. Green’s map of 1795 suggests however that the wall line may have run very slightly south of the southern boundary of Berkeley’s Hospital.

Angel Place was inserted through the wall in stages in the late 17th - 18th centuries to connect Angel Lane with the Butts. A path was made alongside the Angel Lane burial ground (WCM 96095) to give access to a house on the city wall erected in 1646. After the Civil War the city wall was broken through and a stepped entry created. By 1750 this had been widened and graded to allow wheeled traffic through. The house on the wall was later used as a fire station and called the engine house and was rebuilt in 1815. In 1831 it became the Phoenix Fire Office and in 1900 the Norwich Union Fire Station {1}.

The only trace of this section of wall now visible is the use of occasional blocks of sandstone in the base of the brick walls behind the properties 10-12 Angel Street.

field evaluation on the putative line of the wall at Angel Hotel, Angel Place in 2006 revealed ?bank/rampart material on the wall line, calling into question much of the above interpretation of wall alignment and the identification of the sandstone blocks at 10-12 Angel Street. Suggested that the wall may have been some 2-3m further N, within the Berkeley plot and potentially under the buildings.

add comment on Berkeley WBs
need to add refs to all maps

Cross-reference to: 96095, Angel Lane burial ground

Sources and further reading

Related records

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