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| Name: | City Ditch, St Peter’s – Sidbury Gate |
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| HER Reference: | WCM96134 |
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| Type of record: | Monument |
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| Grid Reference: | SO 852 543 |
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| Map Sheet: | SO85SE |
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| Parish: | Worcester (Non Civil Parish), Worcester City, Worcestershire |
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| Worcester, Worcestershire |
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Monument Types
- TOWN DITCH (MEDIEVAL - 1066 AD to 1539 AD (between))
- TOWN DITCH (POST MEDIEVAL - 1540 AD to 1900 AD (between))
Full description
City ditch, component of the medieval city defences WCM 96100.
The general line of the city defences from Sidbury Gate (WCM 96101) to the corner and tower (WCM 96131) by St Peter the Great church (WCM 96037) 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 the 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. The ditch does not appear at all on Doharty’s plan of 1741, but does appear on Broad’s map of 1768, using his standard ‘rough ground’ type convention for the ditch, as elsewhere around the city. The ditch does not appear on Young’s map of 1779 which shows the Frog Brook directly outside the eastern boundary of the churchyard (WCM 96038) in the ditch position (whereas Broad had shown the ditch course separately to the Frog Brook). The city wall is identified on the first edition O.S. 1:500 plan of 1886 (see WCM 96132) but this stretch of the ditch is not, the implication being that the course of the ditch coincides with the canal and the strip of cleared ground along it.
Richardson (1957) reviewed the evidence for the course of the ditch through the WRP property. He found none for the ditch west of St Peter’s (WCM 96133) but recorded a comment by the museum curator to the effect that there was a culvert ‘running parallel with the canal, a few yards inside the factory boundary. This, I am told, continues in the same direction to discharge itself into the Severn’. Richardson suggested this culvert might represent the line of and final remains of the infilled ditch {1}.
Cross-reference to: 96152, Civil War entrenchment, Sidbury (south)
Sources and further reading
| <1> | Article in serial: Richardson, L. 1957. The Ancient Walls and ditches of Worcester. Trans Worcestershire Naturalists Club. Vol 11, Part 2. 115. |
Related records
| WCM96100 | Part of: The medieval city defences (Monument) |
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