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Monument Types

• TOWN DITCH (MEDIEVAL - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• TOWN DITCH (POST MEDIEVAL - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)

Associated Events

• Evaluation, Dyson Perrins Museum extension (Ref: WCM100146)
• Dyson Perrins Museum extension (Ref: WCM100172)
• Dyson Perrins Museum extension (Ref: WCM100185)
• Watching brief, Dyson Perrins Museum (Ref: WCM100386)
• Seconds Shop, RWP (Ref: WCM100387)

Full description

City ditch, component of the medieval city defences WCM 96100.

The general line of the city defences in the Sidbury – Frog Lane (Severn Street) is established from the cartographic sequence.

Speed’s map of 1610 shows the city wall with the ditch outside heading south from Sidbury Gate (WCM 96101), to a corner tower behind St Peter’s church (WCM 96131), and from there north-west to the Frog Gate (WCM 96129). The same features are shown on the 1651 map editions. This stretch of the extramural ditch and city wall do not appear at all on Doharty’s plan of 1741, but are shown on Broad’s map of 1768. The course of the city ditch is rendered by Broad using his standard ‘rough ground’ convention for the infilled ditch. The wall line (WCM 96129) appears on Young’s map of 1779 as a property boundary, with the convention for garden ground outside. The line of the city ditch was specifically identified in this area on the 1st edition O.S. 1:500 plan of 1886, running through what were at that date the St Peter’s or Diglis schools.

Richardson (1957) sought evidence for the ditch in this area and interviewed the curator of the WRP museum, who knew of no evidence of an east-west watercourse or culvert in the area concerned {1}.

Excavation by Marches Archaeology in 1996 and 1998 could not confirm the line of the ditch, though its presence was noted from a borehole survey prior to the 1996 evaluation which found deep, soft/wet clay fills in the expected location {2} (WCM 100146, WCM 100185).

Cross-reference to: 96134, city ditch, Sidbury Gate – St Peter’s
Cross-reference to: 96021, castle ditch, south
Cross-reference to: 96037, St Peter the Great
Cross-reference to: 96038, St Peter’s church plot

Sources and further reading

Related records

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