WALLS, GATES, AND POSTERNS
Town walls c. 3,000 yd. long were built c. 65-80
A.D. when the Roman town was rebuilt after its
destruction by Boudicca. The walls were originally 8-10 ft. thick, built with a core of layered
septaria and mortar faced with coursed septaria
and tile. A number of internal towers, c. 6 ft.
wide and c. 18 ft. long, probably placed at the
end of streets, served as look-out posts and as
platforms for weapons. There was a ditch outside the wall, and in the later 2nd century the
wall was strengthened by the construction of a
rampart behind it. There were probably six
gates. The exceptionally large Balkerne gate in
the west wall seems to have been built as a
free-standing structure about the time of the
foundation of the Roman town, possibly as a
triumphal monument; it had two large central
arches for vehicular traffic, flanked by two smaller pedestrian arches with guardrooms on either
side. The gate was closed in the 4th century
when the town ditch was extended across it; it
was later blocked with a rough masonry wall.
The south-west gate, the later Head gate, seems
to have had two large arches, and the east gate
may have had a central arch flanked by two
pedestrian arches. The surviving north-east gate
comprises a single arch, 11 ft. wide, and the
north-west gate, the medieval North gate, may
have been similar. There is no evidence for the
south-east gate, which may have been on the site
of the medieval South or St. Botolph's gate. (fn. 44)
The Roman walls formed the basis of the
medieval circuit. They were defended unsuccessfully by the Danes in 920, and were repaired
by Edward the Elder in the same year; his work
may have included the blocking of the Balkerne
gate. (fn. 45) Excavation has revealed a mid 11th-century ditch on the south and east sides of the town,
perhaps made in connexion with a strengthening of the defences at the time of the
threatened invasion of Cnut of Denmark. (fn. 46)
Major repairs, possibly amounting to rebuilding
in places, were carried out in 1173-4, at the time
of the rebellion of the young king, the burgesses
being allowed at least part of the cost out of the
farm of the town. (fn. 47) No further work seems to
have been done in the 13th century, and by the
early 14th century the walls were decayed, that
at the East gate being undermined by gravel
digging. Wallgavel was payable from a house
outside Scheregate in the south wall in 1310, and
from a moor in Moor (Priory) Street south-east
of the town in 1312, as well as, presumably, from
other land and houses in the borough. It was
apparently insufficient for the maintenance of
the wall, for in 1312 the borough levied a 'tallage'
on the whole community for the repair of the
walls and gates. (fn. 48) That money probably paid for
extensive repairs, but by 1329 houses were being
built against the wall and on the town waste
adjoining it, and in the mid 14th century several
people were accused of taking stones, one as
many as six cartloads, from the wall. One man
in 1346 removed part of the crenellation of the
wall. (fn. 49)
The borough carried out extensive repairs
between 1381 and c. 1413, removing at least one
house which had been built against the wall. (fn. 50)
By then part of the eastern end of the south wall
had collapsed outwards, and a new wall was built
on top of its remains; five regularly spaced
bastions were added at the same time round the
south-east corner of the wall, between East gate
and Scheregate. (fn. 51) Some attempt seems to have
been made to ensure the future maintenance of
the wall: in 1392 three burgesses gave 2 houses,
4 a. of land, and the advowson of St. Cross
hospital for the repair of the walls, and in 1394
a lease of land along the north wall from
Ryegate to North bridge stipulated that the
tenant should repair the wall. In 1398 another
lease of land adjoining the wall reserved to the
borough the right of access to the wall for its
inspection and repair. (fn. 52) By 1423, however, the
wall was again being undermined by sanddigging, and in 1470 stones were being
removed by the cartload. Outhouses had been
built against the south wall near Scheregate by
1436, and alderman Robert Leche removed the
blocking from a Roman drain arch at the
Balkerne gate to make a new postern in 1535. (fn. 53)
In 1551 the chamberlain was accused of failing
to repair the walls, the wall at Head gate being
in danger of falling. The southern end of the
east wall seems to have collapsed in the 16th
century. (fn. 54) Sand-digging under the wall and the
removal of stones from it continued, but in
1579 and 1586 the offenders were ordered to
repair the wall. In 1619 a licence was granted
to build on the wall provided that the holder
maintained the wall on which he built. (fn. 55)
The walls were refurbished during the Civil
War. In 1642, on a petition from the inhabitants, parliament voted £1,500 for improving
the defences of the town and the blockhouse,
presumably the one at the entrance to the
harbour; Sir Harbottle Grimston urged the
mayor to take advantage of the grant and to
raise more money in the town if necessary. (fn. 56) By
1643 there were several forts within the town,
one of them near the postern by St. Mary's-atthe-Walls, another in High Street. They do not
appear to have been substantial works, and
some may have been little more than pits
revetted with wood, like that excavated in the
south-east corner of the town. (fn. 57) Nevertheless
in 1648 the walls were weak, and there was a
long gap in the north part of the circuit. When
the royalist army took over the town that
summer they filled such gaps with earth ramparts and strengthened other parts of the wall
with 'works', perhaps including the major outwork at the north-east corner of the town. (fn. 58)
The walls thus strengthened withstood the
onslaught of the parliamentary cannon, although the tops of two old, ruined towers,
presumably bastions, were demolished. After
the surrender Fairfax ordered the demolition
of the walls, an order repeated by the council
of state in 1649 and apparently carried out in
1651. The south-west corner of the circuit, by
the royalist battery in St. Mary's churchyard,
seems to have been destroyed at that time, but
most of the works destroyed were probably the
ramparts and siege works built in 1648. (fn. 59)
Complaints of stone-digging in the wall
and building against it continued in the later
17th century, (fn. 60) and no serious effort seems
to have been made to maintain it. By 1694
the wall near Scheregate was level with the
ground on the town side, and in 1711 the
chamberlain was accused of endangering the
lives of the inhabitants by failing to make a
fence on the wall from Headgate to Scheregate. Further complaints about the state
of the wall were made in 1717 and 1722,
and by 1724 most of the north wall west
of Ryegate had gone. (fn. 61) By 1748 the walls
were being maintained only by those whose
gardens adjoined them. (fn. 62) About 185 ft. of the
wall near the top of Balkerne Hill collapsed
into the road in 1795, and 125 ft. a little
further north collapsed c. 1850. (fn. 63) By the
1890s two bastions had been incorporated into houses or workshops, and a
third had been made into a Gothic summer
house. (fn. 64)
In 1866 the corporation paid the improvement commissioners to carry out minor repairs
to the wall, apparently on Balkerne Hill. (fn. 65) The
corporation surveyed the walls in 1879, and
considered repairing dangerous sections, but
were deterred by doubts as to the ownership of
the wall and consequent liability for its repair. (fn. 66)
In 1887 the museum committee of the borough
council assumed responsibility for the wall, (fn. 67)
and thereafter it was regularly inspected and
repaired at the borough's expense. The committee also took steps to prevent the demolition of
parts of the wall, but gave permission for a
breach on Balkerne Hill in 1901 and was unable
to prevent a contractor removing a section of
the wall at Headgate in 1909. After excavations in 1913 the foundations of the Balkerne
gate were consolidated and the remaining
portions of the gate and guardroom roofed
over. (fn. 68) Between 1967 and 1976 the question of
the ownership of the wall again caused difficulties,
the town council maintaining that the wall was
the responsibility of the owners of adjoining
land, and the Department of the Environment
being unable to prevent the demolition of parts
of the wall because notice of scheduling had
not been served on all owners. (fn. 69) Some repairs
were carried out in 1980; in 1985 a 30-ft.
section of the south wall was excavated and
then demolished for the service road to the
Culver shopping precinct; a major programme
of restoration began in 1986. (fn. 70)
The town was surrounded by a ditch in
Roman and presumably also in early medieval
times, but by the 14th century much of the
ditch on the north and south sides seems to
have been filled in and built over. There was a
curtilage under the north wall outside Ryegate
before 1242, and houses outside Scheregate,
presumably in the ditch, by 1337. The area
between the south wall and St. John's Street
was occupied by houses and gardens in 1443. (fn. 71)
The western ditch survived as Balkerne Lane
until the construction of the inner relief road
in 1976-7. (fn. 72)
In the Middle Ages there were four main
gates, Head gate and South or St. Botolph's
gate in the south wall, North gate, and East
gate. All, except perhaps South gate, were
Roman in origin, although Head gate, the
principal medieval gate, may have been just
north of the site of the Roman gate: in 1635
there was a house in the corner formed by the
wall on the south and the gate on the east, and
no trace of medieval work has been seen in the
small portion of the Roman gate which has
been examined. (fn. 73) South gate, if not Roman, was
in existence by 1197. (fn. 74) In addition to the main
gates there were two pedestrian gates, Scheregate in the south wall, and King's Scherde or
Ryegate in the north wall. The north postern
was recorded in 1240 and was called King's
Scherde before 1242; it or Scheregate, which
was in existence in the 13th century, had given
rise to the surname de la Scherde before 1254. (fn. 75)
A postern in the west wall near St. Mary's-atthe-Walls, an enlarged Roman drain arch, was
recorded from 1473, and another in St. Peter's
parish, presumably that made by Robert Leche
in 1535, in 1681. (fn. 76)
North gate, Head gate, and South gate each
comprised a single large arched or squareheaded gateway, (fn. 77) suggesting that they had
been rebuilt in the Middle Ages; there is no
evidence for the appearance of the East gate.
A house or rooms had been built over the
south gate by c. 1338 and was still there in
1604. (fn. 78) In 1358 the bailiffs and community of
the town leased the north gate to a shoemaker,
giving him permission to build over the gate
and on an adjoining plot of land on condition that he repair the wooden gates. (fn. 79) The
borough was leasing the rooms over the
north gate in 1531 and in 1736, and the gate
seems to have had two storeys of building
above it in 1724. (fn. 80) Head gate too seems to
have had a house or rooms above it, possibly
the house whose foundations had been built
into the wall at the gate by 1473, and a
house extended over Scheregate by the late
15th century. (fn. 81) John Ellis, by will dated
1485, provided for statues of St. Helen, St.
Margaret, and St. John the Baptist to be
placed on the East gate. (fn. 82)
The chamberlain was accused in 1447 of
failing to repair East gate and Head gate; in
1470 South gate was in ruins, and in 1474
chains at East gate and Head gate needed
repair. South gate still needed repair in 1534,
and in 1540 one of the aldermen was accused
of selling 'the town gate at St. Botolph's', (fn. 83)
perhaps part of the wooden gate at South gate.
St. Botolph's gate was repaired in 1609. (fn. 84) All
the gates were still standing and defensible in
1648, and withstood the siege that year. Part of
East gate fell down in 1652, and more of it was
pulled down as dangerous in 1676, but part of
the Roman guard house on the south side of
the gate survived in 1813, and that or another
part of the gate was demolished by the improvement commissioners in 1819. (fn. 85) Head gate
was demolished in 1753. (fn. 86) The top was taken
off North gate in 1774, but the sides of the gate,
incorporated into the adjoining houses, were
not demolished until 1823. (fn. 87) St. Botolph's gate
was demolished by the improvement commissioners in 1814. (fn. 88) Ryegate was sold, presumably for its materials, in 1659, but a staircase
and the west part of the gate survived in 1671,
incorporated into the adjoining house. (fn. 89) Scheregate presumably disappeared with its adjoining
wall in the later 17th century, although its position was marked by Scheregate steps in 1990.