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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

• Worcestershire Farmers, Dolday (Ref: WCM100157)
• City Wall, Worcestershire Farmers weighbridge pit (Ref: WCM100201)
• Worcestershire Farmers (Ref: WCM100202)
• Butts drainage trenches: Worcestershire Farmers and Ewe & Lamb (Ref: WCM100203)
• Land north of Dolday and The Butts ('St Clements Gate') (Ref: WCM100427)
• Croft Road/The Butts (Ref: WCM100625)
• Cattle Market site (Ref: WCM100759)
• Cattlemarket site (Ref: WCM100853)
• Watching Brief at 'Provender Mill', Dolday (Ref: WCM101998)

Full description

Part of the medieval city wall, now demolished to ground level or below. Continues to E as WCM 96120 and adjoins St Clement's Gate (WCM 96043). the ditch here is WCM 96139. See also St Clement's church (WCM 96041) and church plot (WCM 96042) which abut the S side of the wall at its W end.

Shown on Speed’s map of 1610 with a corner tower at the north-west angle (WCM 96123) and three other uncertainly-drawn features, possibly meant to represent towers, including the more securely established tower WCM 96122. The latter is the only feature shown on the 1651 map editions on this stretch of the wall. Shown as an intact feature on all 18th-century maps (Doharty 1741, Broad 1768, Young 1779, Green 1795) with a few buildings built up against it inside and out. Broad’s map also shows conventionally-drawn summerhouses. As a continuous line it remained intact in the 1880s (1st ed. O.S. 1:500) though at the western end with continuous building against it (facing south to Dolday) and represented as a building wall rather than as a free-standing structure of measurable width.

A ‘dye house’ was built on the wall c.1700 about half way between Rack Alley and St Clement’s church, probably at first for wool, later for silk, built here so that waste could be discharged over the wall into the ditch. The plot was later occupied by brush-making workshops, then workers’ housing, and then in 1846 the Ewe and Lamb P.H. (see below) was built {1}.

The city wall was encountered by excavations (WCM 100203) in 1958 for new drains near the Worcestershire Farmer’s site. Was cut through at right-angles and shown to be built of red sandstone with a battered plinth. Three plinth courses were exposed but the base lay somewhere below the 10 foot depth (3.05m) reached. The plinth was topped by a thin course of slabs above which the plane of the wall was set back by 4 ins (10cms). About 4.5ft (1.22m) above this the wall face was set back again (marking the base of a probable late rebuild), coincident with a substantial brick rubble deposit outside at a depth of c.2 feet (0.61m). Only the lowest courses of the inner face survived. The wall was 4ft 8ins (1.42m) thick with a core of large rubble blocks in a mortar matrix. The wall was also exposed in excavations under the Ewe and Lamb P.H. about 80m west of Rack Alley (now Virginia House site). One wall of the pub was shown to be resting on the City Wall and set 6ins (0.15m) back from its outer face. Other recently-demolished buildings were noted to have been similarly founded on the City Wall {2}.

The wall had also been encountered in 1955 (WCM 100157) during construction of Worcs. Farmers Ltd, the east west foundation being exposed running through the site 50 yards south of the Butts frontage. It was built of red Lower Keuper sandstone and had been robbed for adjacent later footings {3}.

In 1957 a pit for a weighbridge (WCM 100201) was dug adjoining the west side of the Worcs. Farmers Ltd building, and cut through the city wall. The pit was 5.5ft deep (1.67m) in made ground, the base of the city wall lay at a depth of 7 feet, the thickness of the wall was 7ft at the base (2.13m) and 5ft above (1.52m). It was built of red sandstone throughout {4}.

[note add Mike Napthans evaluation evidence....]

add evidence from 2003 record at Russell & Dorrell

and more recent work at this site now HOW College

map refs

Sources and further reading

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