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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)
• Ongoing work: Blackfriars Trench 6 (excavation) (Ref: WCM100428)
• CCTV Phase 8 - Croft Walk, The Butts & Rack Alley (Ref: WCM100905)
• City Wall, rear of Crowngate Multistorey car park (Ref: WCM101509)
• City wall repair, 19 The Butts (Ref: WCM102142)

Protected Status

• Listed Building

Full description

City wall, standing section, extending east and west of Rack Alley. Inspected January 2001.

Sandstone masonry visible standing above internal (south) ground level, up to c.45 metres east of Rack Alley, partly obscured by undergrowth, and forming a retaining wall down to the north. For 21 metres west of Rack Alley the wall continues as a free-standing boundary wall, partly overgrown but sandstone built, at the rear of a 19th and 20th-century industrial building (now a club).

The external (north) face of the eastern end of this section of wall was investigated in 1992 (WCM 100193). A c.10-metre length of whitewashed sandstone wall composed of 3-5 ashlar courses, battered back to the south, formed the base of the brick retaining wall. In plan the wall curved north from the main line of the city wall, retaining the ‘mound’ beneath North Wall House that projects out from the city wall line (see WCM 96119). The excavator considered the sandstone masonry to represent medieval work, the northward projection marking the site of a possible tower. Some confirmation of this was possibly to be found in a Civil War bastion shown at this location on Green’s map of 1795 {1}. While none of the other 18th-century city maps (Doharty, Broad, Young) show any anomalies in this area, Speed’s map of 1610 shows a number of indistinct tower symbols one of which could correspond with this location. The masonry projection may though be re-used material in the base courses of the late 19th-century North Wall House retaining walls.

Excavations in 1985-6 (WCM 100428; Blackfriars T6) took place just east of Rack Alley immediately within the wall, the upper parts of which were attributed to 19th-century rebuilds. No features were found associated with the city wall other than a Civil War quarry ditch running north-east to south-west and bank to its north, interpreted as refurbishments of June 1646 (WCM 96143) {2}.

add Napthan CCTV ref
add ref to R J Collins 1926 photo now in file
record associated with repairs
Hive work
discovery of more wall face to W of Rack Alley
historic photo

designation - part scheduled monument

Cross-reference to: 96121, City wall, The Butts – St Clement’s
Cross-reference to: 96139, City ditch (north)
Cross-reference to: 96144 Civil War Bastion

Sources and further reading

Related records

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