Queenborough Town Defences (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Queenborough.
In the historic county of Kent.
Modern Authority of Kent.
1974 county of Kent.
Medieval County of Kent.

OS Map Grid Reference: TQ909723
Latitude 51.41762° Longitude 0.74416°

Queenborough Town Defences has been described as a Urban Defence although is doubtful that it was such.

There are no visible remains.

Comments

Quite what the evidence is for this statement by Bond is unclear. The Queenborough Borough records are catalogued in the National Archives and do not seem to have anything related to urban defences. The site is one which would have needed sea flood defences and drainage ditches which can be recorded in medieval records in a manner similar to military defences. Given map reference is for parish church of Holy Trinity which dates back at least to C11. Queenborough was a new borough of the C14, but was based on an earlier village and no new church seems to have been built so presumably whatever defences there were, of whatever form or intended function, this church would have been within the circuit.

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 623293 (medieval borough).
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) TQ 97 SW 17 (medieval borough).

Books
- Creighton, O.H. and Higham, R.A., 2005, Medieval Town Walls (Stroud: Tempus) p. 72, 193, 216, 262
  Bond, C.J., 1987, 'Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Defences' in Schofield, J. and Leech, R. (eds) Urban Archaeology in Britain (CBA Research Report 61) p. 92-116 online copy
  Beresford, M.W., 1967, New Towns of the Middle Ages (London) p. 457
Periodical Articles
- Woodruff, C.E., 1897, 'Notes on the Municipal Records of Queenborough' Archaeologia Cantiana Vol. 22 p. 169-85 online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Susie Barson, Jonathan Clarke, Geraint Franklin, Joanna Smith, 2006, Queenborough, Isle of Sheppey, Kent; Historic Area Appraisal (English Heritage. Research Department Report Series 39/2006)
  Kent County Council, December 2004, Kent Historic Towns Survey (Kent County Council and English Heritage) view online copy

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The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

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