Monument Type(s):

• TOWER (13th century to 15th century - 1200 AD to 1499 AD)
• TOWN WALL (13th century to 15th century - 1200 AD to 1499 AD)

Summary

This site represents: a town wall of medieval date, a tower of medieval date.

Related records

Associated Finds: None recorded

Associated Events

• ESA7590 - 2015 Conservation management survey of the town walls, Shrewsbury, by SCAS

Description

Circular tower forming the north-east termination of the riverside defensive wall known as the New Work [PRN 01459]. Referred to in the Inquisitions of the 1340s, which allowed the grant of the New Work to the friars. This tower does not seem to be known archaeologically, but its position can be fixed from the documented length of the New Work extending from the known site of the south-west tower [see 01459), and also from a corporation grant of 1565 (7 Eliz I) of a parcel of waste or void ground at Cripple Gate [PRN 01456], adjoining 'an old defaced tower there sheting (?) into Severn containing in length from the upper part of the said tower down to the door in the lower part of the same tower towards the sink hole or gutter there which cometh out & from the tower aforesaid 14 woolen yards' [<1>]. Text courtesy of W A Champion. From this it seems that the tower stood close by (?14 yards) what was later known as the Mudholes, represented by the culvert PRN 62557, and earlier, probably by the town ditch PRN 62570. When the tower was demolished is at present unknown. <2>

A conservation management plan was prepared in 2015 for the entire circuit of town walls surrounding Shrewsbury (excluding around Shrewsbury Castle at the NE corner). This provides a general historic overview of the development of the town defences, together with detailed analysis and management recommendations for individual sections (in gazetteer form in volume 2). This tower is identified as 7c, part of the New Work (PRN 01459) defending a ford across the River Severn in the vicinity of the Augustinian Friary. The line of the wall is now marked by the boundary of the Shrewsbury Sixth Form College along Victoria Avenue. ->

-> The eastern end of this section of the defences lies beneath a restaurant and bar (The Armoury) complex on Victoria Avenue. The New Work was an outlier to the town’s defences which ran along the river frontage to the west of the Welsh Bridge. It seems to have been built in the late 13th century to guard a ford which crossed the river from Frankwell. It comprised a stretch of wall some 100m long with a circular tower at each end. In 1342 the wall was referred to in inquisitions of that year and the following year, which described the wall as being 20 perches long (c. 100m) with two round towers. ->

This tower, at the NE end, is referred to in a document of 1565 as being 14 yards from the 'spouthole', later the site of a culvert, and originally probably the point
at which the town ditch entered the river.<3>

<01> Anon, 1686, Shrewsbury Borough Rental (Manuscript). SSA10664.

<02> Baker Nigel J, UAD Analysis (SMR comment). SSA20432.

<03> Hannaford Hugh R, 2015, Shrewsbury Town Walls: a conservation management plan (2 volumes), Gazetteer 7c (Management report). SSA28223.

Sources

Search results generated by the HBSMR Gateway from exeGesIS SDM Ltd.