More information : [Name TF 3297 4383] BAR DITCH [GT] (Covered)
[Name TF 3282 4424] BAR GATE [AT] (Site of). (1-2)
[TF 3246 4441 to TF 3294 4356] The town of Boston began as the port of St. Botolph shortly after the Conquest. In 1203 the citizens were granted a character by King John. At some uncertain period the town on the east bank of the Witham was ditched and walled, and in 1285 the walls were repaired. [See AO/LP/64/176 for line] There is mention of Wormgate, Bargate and St John's Gate. St John's Bridge, mentioned in 1567 when it was ordered that a gate should be placed there, was at the southern end of the ditch where it meets the river. In 1643 the town was besieged and taken by the Parliamentarians.
Excavations by M.W. Barley (3) in the grounds of Fydell House
[TF 3285 4387 (2)] on the inner lip of the ditch, revealed a brick wall, going down to brick and stone foundations, 6 ft thick, on a timber platform. On pottery evidence the wall appears to be early 14th century. The Bar Ditch had been piped in a brick conduit about 1725, and "no clear indications were found of the mediaeval ditch which probably lay further east". [This appears to be a somewhat ambiguous reference to the line of the ditch before it was piped or to its outer lip.]
Further excavations of Fydell House by P. Mayes, (4) and also east of the Odeon Cinema, yielded a large range of pottery from the 11th century onwards. In all the cuttings made wall and ditch were found on the expected line. There was no proof that the wall was ever defensive. [See map diagram for walls and town components.] (3-6)
There are no surface indications of the Town wall or gates. The
conduited ditch is now subterranean apart from a concrete emergence spout at TF 32947 43561 and a concrete outlet at TF 32463 44417.
The excavations, now filled, are visible at TF 32846 43844 and
TF 32956 43807. (7)
11th century beginnings of Port of Boston, documentary evidence. (8)
The Medieval town. (9)
Medieval/Post Medieval pottery including two 18th century pits and much leather, including four dagger sheaths found during Barditch excavation. (10-14)
Boston - There are no murage grants (claimed as the evidence that the walls were begun in 1285 by P. Thompson 1820), only a pavage grant. (15)
"It is doubtful that Boston was ever strongly fortified . There are no records of murage grants (only one for pavage in 1285) , but the Barditch, with inner earth bank, dates from around 1200, and various excavations have uncovered a stretch of 2ft-thick wall on stone and brick foundations, three times that thickness, as well as evidence of stone revetments to the ditch. Behind the Dominican Friary is a 110ft length of masonry wall with buttresses, reinforcing the Barditch. The Bargate was a street not a gateway, but it was reached by a bridge over the Barditch . Much of the ditch had been bricked over by the mid-1800s. " (16) |