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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))

Associated Events

• 5/13 The Butts (Ref: WCM100193)
• 3/5 The Butts (Ref: WCM100194)
• Angel Row stables (Ref: WCM100195)
• Butts drainage trenches: Worcestershire Farmers and Ewe & Lamb (Ref: WCM100203)
• Berkeleys Hospital (Ref: WCM100238)
• Berkeleys Hospital (Ref: WCM100357)
• 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)
• Shaw Street - city ditch trench (Ref: WCM100929)
• 1 The Butts - evaluation (Ref: WCM101108)
• 1 The Butts - watching brief (Ref: WCM101109)

Full description

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

Not shown by either Speed’s map of 1610 or the 1651 map editions, which place it out of sight behind the city wall. First appears on Doharty’s map of 1741 that shows a watercourse running along its north side along the Butts before heading northwards out of the ditch (on the St Clement’s – All Saints’ parish boundary). Broad’s map of 1764 shows the ditch occupied by gardens for its whole length west of Berkeley’s Hospital, as does Young’s map of 1779. By the 1880s (first edition O.S.) the line of the ditch was intermittently built up along its whole length.

Richardson 1957 noted the presence of a natural streamlet running down the defile followed by the city ditch, and also black earth in the low-lying gardens of the line of the ditch {1}, opposite the scheduled section of wall between Cold Bath Cottage and Angel Place (then the Central Motor Works premises). Richardson also reported the discovery of a brick drain sunk in the black earth to take the streamlet - 'The brick sewer mentioned above probably carried the stream that originally, according to Doharty's map, rose in a position approximately that of the present garden of Berkeley's Hospital west of the chapel. In this garden is a square plot where the soil is very dark, and, according to the chaplain, "always wet no matter how dry the season."'{2}

The upper fill of the ditch at its lower end (black, wet soil with animal bones beneath ‘made ground’ with rubble) was contacted in a north-south trench in 1957 (WCM 100203). A complete profile of the ditch was recorded by Robin Jackson (WCM 100193: 1992 trench 1) and detail added by an adjacent watching-brief in 1997 (WCM 100194). The ditch fill was found to have accumulated in the late 17th to early 18th centuries. Excavation and augering showed the ditch to have a broad and irregular profile, possibly the result of successive scourings; it was at least 3.5 metres deep and 16 metres wide, and lay between the Butts frontage and a 5.5 metre berm at the foot of the city wall (WCM 96118 and WCM 96119) {3}. The 1997 watching brief found a brick-lined culvert towards the north side of the filled ditch and other (late post-medieval) negative features cut into the ditch fill {4}.

Site investigation of the footings of the Berkeley’s Hospital buildings found extremely deep brick sub-structures penetrating the ditch fill (WCM 100238/100357).

(Note: need ref for stream rising under B. Hospital garden)
(Note: need details/Dinn w-brief etc Berkeley’s Hosp foundations)
add refs to M Napthan 2003 1 The Butts, & WCM 100929 Shaw Street

Cross-reference to: 96117, city wall, line of, North Gate – Angel Place
Cross-reference to: 96120, city wall, standing, Rack Alley
Cross-reference to: 96121, city wall, line of, The Butts – St Clement’s
Cross-reference to: 96122, tower, The Butts – St Clement’s
Cross-reference to: 96123, St Clement’s tower and city wall
Cross-reference to: 96116, North gate
Cross-reference to: 96044, St Clement’s Bridge
Cross-reference to: 96138, city ditch, North Gate – Trinity Gate
Cross-reference to: 96069, Berkeley’s Hospital
Cross-reference to: 96144, Civil War bastion
Cross-reference to: 96145, Civil War bastion
Cross-reference to: 96142, Civil War bastion, St Clement’s Sconce

Sources and further reading

Related records

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