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Monument Types

• STRUCTURE (Unknown date)
• WALL (Unknown date)
• TOWN GATE (MEDIEVAL - 1066 AD to 1539 AD (between))
• TOWN GATE (POST MEDIEVAL - 1540 AD to 1900 AD (between))

Associated Events

• Dyson Perrins (Ref: WCM100172)
• 18/20 Severn St (Ref: WCM100208)
• Transco trenching, Edgar Street etc (Ref: WCM101270)

Full description

Constituent of the medieval city defences (WCM 96100), probably demolished in the late 17th century.

Beardsmore’s earliest reference is to its repair in 1467, from the city ordinances. A ‘French Wall’ was built at the Frog Gate 1570. According to Thomas Vaulx writing in 1677 the Frog Gate had been demolished; in 1694 there is a reference to land near Frog Gate to be viewed’, but this is the last such reference {1}. Pat Hughes’ map of properties in the area appearing in the 1660 Poll Tax returns suggests it had gone by that date.

The gate is shown very clearly (but conventionally) on Speed’s map of 1610, over Severn Street (Frog Lane) where the St Peter the Great leg of the city wall (WCM 96130) joined the castle perimeter. It similarly appears on the various editions of the 1651 map. It is absent from the 18th-century maps though Broad’s map of 1768 and Young’s map of 1779 both show the adjoining stretch of wall to the east and indicate that housing along Frog Lane extended south to approximately the site of the gate.

These sources suggest that the Frog Gate stood at the junction of the castle’s south wall and ditch (WCM 96023 and WCM 96021) with the city wall and ditch around Sidbury (WCM 96130 and WCM 96133).

In 1996 a GPR survey by Stratascan of the Dyson Perrins museum site was extended into Severn Street to locate the line of the city wall thought to have been detected east of and within the museum building. The GPR results suggested the continuation of the wall under the roadway, and a thickening of the suspected wall was suggested to represent the structure of the Frog Gate (WCM 100172).

[To check: Mundy 1993 w/b 100208 17-20 Severn Street (re Frog Gate evidence).
Also: Mundy 1995 w/b 100386, Dyson Perrins Museum]
add ref to radar report

Sources and further reading

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