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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

• 5/13 The Butts (Ref: WCM100193)
• 3/5 The Butts (Ref: WCM100194)
• Angel Row stables (Ref: WCM100195)
• North Wall House, 11 The Butts (Ref: WCM101198)

Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument
• Listed Building

Full description

City wall, partly standing section: constituent of WCM 96100, medieval city defences. Continues to W as WCM 96117 and to E as WCM 96119.

Western section of wall is well preserved, with areas of sandstone masonry up to 6 metres high incorporated in base of brick retaining wall. Sandstone masonry here is mainly red and green with some white, set in pinkish sandy mortar. In the base of the wall at the east end of the section covered by WCM 100193 is a shallow (segmental) arch c.3 metres wide, one metre high, filled with ‘roughly hewn sandstone blocks’. Jackson 1992 suggests this may either have been a relieving arch or have accommodated discharge from a spring, taking it into the extramural ditch (WCM 96139). Putlog holes c.4-6 metres above outside ground level/base of wall may represent lean-to building positions. Section of vertical moulded quoining four courses high. A step in the wall line may indicate a construction break between gang-built sections. Scheduled as SAM 285g. Surveyed by Jackson 1992 (WCM 100193) {1} based on architects’ survey.

To the east, it is mainly rebuilt in brick at rear of no.1 The Butts {2}; it is destroyed above ground within c. 25 metres of Angel Place, its line represented by the passageway along the north side of the former 1859 Presbyterian Church.

This section of city wall formed the north boundary to part of the Blackfriars’ Orchard and an adjacent garden in the medieval period. In the post-Dissolution period a house was built on the city wall here. A chapel or meeting house was built alongside the wall in the later 17th century, set back behind (west of) housing on Angel Lane. For a while from 1740 it was converted into a playhouse. A Sunday School was part of the site from 1797 onwards, a new school building being erected in 1889 on the corner of the Butts and Angel Street {3}.

See also report by Pat Hughes on no.1 the Butts (which does not however cover the city wall fabric).

see also Napthan report on recording etc (2003) at 1 The Butts

Cross-reference to: 96145, Civil War Bastion

Sources and further reading

Related records

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