Weymouth Town Defences (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Weymouth.
In the historic county of Dorset.
Modern Authority of Dorset.
1974 county of Dorset.
Medieval County of Dorset.

OS Map Grid Reference: SY678786
Latitude 50.60671° Longitude -2.45562°

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

There are no visible remains.

Comments

Gatehouse has not yet identified what this documentary evidence is and neither Creighton/Higham or Barley give a citation. It may be that the defences are the artillery forts mentioned by Hutchin (see Melcombe Cotton Fort and Blockhouse although these properly belong to Melcombe - The two towns were combined only in 1571.)
Whatever Barley's documentary evidence for town defence was it is so obscure as to have not been otherwise noted. The is no archaeological, topographical or place-name evidence to suggest medieval town defences although there were considerable Civil War defences and some Tudor coastal defences (notably Sandsfoot Castle).
PastScape locate this at SY684793 which is medieval Melcombe, not Weymouth which was south of the harbour. The map reference given here is for St Nicholas Church, technically a chapel of ease, but which must have functioned as the towns 'parish' church.
See also Melcome Regis Town Wall.

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 660781.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 4 002 574.

Books
- Creighton, O.H. and Higham, R.A., 2005, Medieval Town Walls (Stroud: Tempus) p. 258
  Barley, M.W., 1975, 'Town Defences in England and Wales after 1066' in Barley (ed) The plans and topography of medieval towns in England and Wales (CBA Research Report 14) p. 57-71 download/view online
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Dorset County Council, 2011, Dorset Historic Towns Survey: Weymouth and Melcombe Regis Download 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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