Christchurch Town Wall (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Twyneham; Twinham; Twynam

In the civil parish of Christchurch.
In the historic county of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
Modern Authority of Dorset.
1974 county of Dorset.
Medieval County of Hampshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SZ15679281
Latitude 50.73414° Longitude -1.77989°

Christchurch Town Wall has been described as a certain Urban Defence.

There are earthwork remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

Christchurch was known in the Anglo-Saxon and early Norman period as Twinham. It was one of the burhs listed in the "Burghal Hidage", and defended originally by a bank and ditch. Excavations have shown that a stone wall was added at a later date. The defences were levelled in the 13th and 14th centuries.
Twinham was probably a port of some strategic importance, but it never acquired much economic importance, and there is no evidence that it ever had a mint or a moneyer in the 10th century. (Penn; Wilson; Dowdell; Jarvis 1976)
The burh defences were excavated at a number of points during the 1970s and 1981-3, revealing distinct differences between those on the Northern, Eastern and Western sides of the town.
The Northern defences.
An early C10th burh 8.0-9.0 m wide extended the length of the Northern perimeter and at least in part comprised
natural sand bar material in the vicinity of site W6 and X10. A berm 4m wide lay in front of this, and a ditch 2m deep fronted the berm. In the 10th or 11th century a stone revetment was added to the inner face of the bank, and a second ditch placed 10m beyond the bank. There were at least six ditch phases, but all had been filled by the 12th/13th century.
Eastern defences.
Parallel shallow gullies delineated the burh in the late 9th or early 10th century. The defences then follow the same pattern as those on the north side except a single external ditch was recut once and the revetment is external to the burh.
Western defences.
These consisted of a reveted burh and ditch (Jarvis 1983; Davis).
Further excavation at 14 High St (Northern defences) in 1982 revealed a 25m length of the Saxon burh ditch which was cut originally c. 900 AD, and was open for almost one hundred years, and purposely backfilled (Davis).
A watching brief at the King's Arms Hotel (SZ 15999273) located the burh, berm and ditch of the Eastern defences (Jarvis 1985).
The fortification can be assumed on archaeological and documentary grounds to have existed from the reign of Alfred the Great and was a 'major borough'. Twinham was assessed at 470 hides, equivalent to 1939 feet of defences (Hill and Rumbold). (PastScape)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1002371, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number do831
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 458697.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) MDO19404 and others.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Anthony Bradshaw, 1999, The Burghal Hidage
  Wikipedia entry
Books
- Salter, Mike, 2013, Medieval Walled Towns (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 53
  Purton, P.F., 2009, A History of the Early Medieval Siege c. 450-1220 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press) p. 91
  Creighton, O.H. and Higham, R.A., 2005, Medieval Town Walls (Stroud: Tempus) p. 93, 258
  Salter, Mike, 2002, The Castles of Wessex (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 15
  Hill, D. and Rumbold, A., 1996, The Defence of Wessex: Burghal Hidage and Anglo-Saxon Fortifications (Manchester University Press) p. 108-9
  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
  Jarvis, K.S., 1983, Excavations in Christchurch, 1969 to 1980 (Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society Monograph 5)
  Penn, K.J., 1980, Historic Towns in Dorset (Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society Monograph) p. 39-44
  Wilson, D.M. (ed), 1976, The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England (Routledge) p. 125, 126, 128
  Jarvis, K., 1977, in Archaeological Excavations 1976 (HMSO) p. 115
  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
  Page, Wm (ed), 1912, VCH Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Vol. 5 p. 83- online transcription
Periodical Articles
- Creighton, Oliver, 2006, ''Castles of Communities': Medieval Town Defences in England; Wales and Gascony' Château Gaillard Vol. 22 p. 75-86
  Haslam, J., 2005, 'The early development of late Saxon Christchurch, Dorset, and the Burghal Hidage' Medieval Archaeology Vol. 53 p. 95-118 online copy
  Jarvis, K., 1985, 'Christchurch - King's Arms Hotel, Watching Brief, site X18' Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society Vol. 107 p. 168-90
  Davis, S.M. (ed), 1983, 'Excavations at Christchurch, Dorset, 1981 to 1983' Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society Vol. 105 p. 23-33
  Dowdell, G., 1974, 'Late Saxon and Medieval Remains at Christchurch' Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society Vol. 96 p. 67
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Dorset County Council, 2011, Dorset Historic Towns Survey: Christchurch online copy

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The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

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.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

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