MONUMENT NO. 114682

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The new settlement at Bridgnorth, to the north of the castle was surrounded initially, between 1216 and 1223, by a wooden stockade and moat. Murage grants were made during the 13th to 15th centuries. By Leland's time the town walls were in ruins. There were five gates in the town wall, constructed between 1256 and 1264, of these only the north Gate, now reconstructed survives.

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(SO 71569332 through SO 71389305 and SO 71719304 to
SO 71749337) Site of Town Wall (NR) (four times) (SO 71589301)
and SO 71639302) Wall (NR) (remains of) (twice) (SO 71660336) Site
of (NAT) Moat (NR) (See map diagram) (1)

The new settlement at Bridgnorth, to the north of the castle
(SO 79 SW 6) was surrounded initially, between 1216 and 1223, by
a wooden stockade and moat. Replacement in stone was probably a
piecemeal process later in the 13th and 14th centuries (2 & 3).
Murage grants being made during the 13th to 15th centuries (4). By
Leland's time the town walls were "all in ruins". There were five
gates in the town wall, constructed between 1256 and 1264 (see
component cards), of these only North Gate, now reconstructed
survives (7). Remains of the wall survive at the Half Moon
Battery (SO 79 SW 7 2), formerly linked to the wall (2), Hollybush
Road, Listley Street and to the rear of 93 Cartway (5). (See
SO 79 SW 7 4 for the Barrier Gate or Barbican). Burrow (3)
suggests that there were possibly no defences other than natural
on the eastern side but the course of the wall is clearly
delineated by authorities 1 and 2. The extant remains of the
wall shown by authority 1 may be part of the castle wall (see
SO 79 SW 6). As part of these are described as being of red
sandstone it may perhaps be significant that remains of the wall
found at Listley Street are of white stone (2). Taken with the
siting of the Listley Gate (SO 79 SW 7 3) and Barrier Gate
(SO 79 SW 7 4) it is possible that the actual course of the wall
continued eastwards along Listley Street and Cartway to
approximately the Cow Gate (SO 79 SW 7) and not shown by
authority 1. There was a ditch to the north of castle wall
(SO 79 SW 6), this being crossed by a drawbridge from the
Barbican (SO 79 SW 7 4). North Gate and remanants of wall grade
2. Moat Street represents part of the line of the moat. (2-7)

Although for the most part there is little reason to doubt on
the published line of the wall, the surviving evidence is very
fragmentary, consisting usually of reconstructed stone walling or
patches of stonework in walls rebuilt in brick.

The line from the West Gate to Listley Gate follows the crest of
a south-facing slope, and almost certainly took in the promontory
south-west of Listley Gate with its sandstone cliffs and steep
slopes. It is unlikely that it crossed Railway Street on the
published line (1) to join the castle wall to the west of the
Post Office, since Railway Street runs steeply down from the site
of Listley Gate so that a more likely course would be along the
south side of Listley Street to the site of Barrier Gate as
suggested above.

The slopes on the east side are steep but not insurmountable, and
would probably have required the additional protection of a wall.
(See Map Diagram).(8)

SOURCE TEXT

( 1) Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date)

OS 1:500 1884

( 2a) Oral information, correspondence (not archived) or staff comments

( 2) Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Historical Society

(W W Pitchford) 49 - 1937-8 Page(s)199-204

( 3b) Oral information, correspondence (not archived) or staff comments

( 3) Externally held archive reference

Salop Co Sites & Mons Rec SA 384 1976 (I Burrow)

( 4) by Hilary L Turner 1971 Town defences in England and Wales: an architectural and documentary study AD 900-1500

(H Turner) 1971 Page(s)201-2,238-41

( 5) List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest

DOE (HHR) Bridgnorth RD 1974 27 41 68 78 79

( 6) by Trevor Rowley 1972 The Shropshire landscape

The making of the English landscape [series] 1972 Page(s)190

( 7) General reference

The Boro of Bridgnorth 1157-1957 1957 10-11 (J F A Mason)

( 8) Field Investigators Comments

F1 DJC 31-JAN-79

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Monument Name/No

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Description

BRIDGNORTH
BRIDGNORTH

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Medieval town and borough, mentioned in charter of 1100

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