Lincoln City Wall (The Gatehouse Record)

Comments

The circuit of the walls never enclosed all the residences of the city even when original built by the Roman's. The medieval city markets and many residences were mainly outside the walls but were defined by ditched embankments and toll bars. Little remains of the walls (except where they form the circuit of the castle or cathedral close). Although murage was collected in the C13/C14 the grants were not as extensive as other cities (notably York) and seem to be often misapplied. However, there was some extension of the Roman Wall in the medieval period when two short sections of walling extended the lower city wall to the river and gates were built at the southern end of Wigford suburb (which was otherwise delineated by the River Witham on the north and west and the Sincil Dyke - a water filled ditch - on the east).
Descriptions of the town walls tend to concentrate on the Roman walls and, outside of specialists publications, little attention is given to the medieval adaptations of these Roman walls and gates and the new medieval defences. The city wall is legally protected as numerous scheduled monuments (Old county monument numbers li4; 17, 18, 19, 35, 37,68, 114, 165, 187, 253, 281 – none of these records were reviewed under the Monuments Protection Programme and currently (July 2013) no online copy of the description is available) and listed building reports. The archaeological databases also reflect this with numerous entries for the defences. It is difficult to find any resource that gives an overall description of all the medieval defences of Lincoln

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1005478, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number li4
National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1388462 , 1388605 , and others
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 326541; 1029539.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 70153; 70143; 70455; 70150 and others.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Wikipedia entry
  The History of Lincoln Waites
  Heritage Connect Lincoln and Heritage Connect Lincoln and Heritage Connect Lincoln
  Abaroth's World
Books
- Salter, Mike, 2013, Medieval Walled Towns (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 88-91
  Osborne, Mike, 2010, Defending Lincolnshire: A Military History from Conquest to Cold War (The History Press) p. 30, 50
  Creighton, O.H. and Higham, R.A., 2005, Medieval Town Walls (Stroud: Tempus) passim
  Stocker, D. (ed), 2003, The City by the Pool (Oxford: Oxbow Books)
  Salter, Mike, 2002, The Castles of the East Midlands (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 57
  Colyer, C., Gilmour, B.J.J. and Jones, M.J., 1999, The Archaeology of Lincoln Vol VII–2: the defences of the Lower City (CBA Research Report 114)
  Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge: Boydell Press) p. 143-4
  Jones, Michael J., 1993, 'Medieval Lincoln' in Bennett, S. and Bennett, N. (eds), An Historical Atlas of Lincolnshire (University of Hull Press) p. 32-3, 139
  Pevsner, Nikolaus and John Harris; revised by Nicholas Antram, 1989, Buildings of England: Lincolnshire (Harmondsworth) p. 440
  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
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 266
  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 plan p. 64 download/view online
  Colyer, C., 1975, Lincoln: The Archaeology of an Historic City (Lincoln: Lincolnshire Archaeological Trust)
  Turner, H.L., 1971, Town Defences in England and Wales (London) p. 119-20
  Hill, F., 1948, Medieval Lincoln (Cambridge Univesity Press) p. 3-9, 120
  Harvey, Alfred, 1911, Castles and Walled Towns of England (London: Methuen and Co) p. 230-1
  King, Edward, 1804, Munimenta antiqua or Observations on antient castles (W.Bulmer and Co) Vol. 3 p. 137-9 online copy
  Grose, Francis, 1785 (new edn orig 1756), Antiquities of England and Wales (London) Vol. 3 p. 128-9 online copy
Periodical Articles
- Creighton, Oliver, 2006, ''Castles of Communities': Medieval Town Defences in England; Wales and Gascony' Château Gaillard Vol. 22 p. 75-86
  Jones, M.J., 1980, 'The defences of the upper Roman enclosure' Archaeology of Lincoln Vol. 7
  Reynolds, N.M., 1979, 'Saltergate' in C Colyer and M J Jones (eds), 'Excavations at Lincoln: second interim report: excavations in the lower town 1972-8' Antiquaries Journal Vol. 59 p. 84-9
  Colyer, C., 1975, 'Excavations at Lincoln, 1970-72: the western defences of the lower town: an interim report' Antiquaries Journal Vol. 55 p. 227-66
  Thompson, F.H. and Whitwell, J.B., 1973, 'The gates of Roman Lincoln' Archaeologia Vol. 104 p. 129-207
  1973, Medieval Archaeology Vol. 17 p. 169 download copy
  Petch, D.F., 1962, 'Excavations at Lincoln, 1955-58' The Archaeological Journal Vol. 117 p. 40-70
  1959, The Journal of Roman studies Vol. 49 p. 109-11
  Richmond, I.A., 1946, 'The Roman City of Lincoln' The Archaeological Journal Vol. 103 p. 25-6 online copy
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed), 1891-1916, Calendar of Patent Rolls (1216-1225) p. 518-9; (1247-1258) p. 203; p. 652; (1266-1272) p. 188; p. 510; (1281-1291) p. 243; (1321-1324) p. 50; (1334-1338) p. 529; (1343-1345) p. 553 (murage grants)
  CPR (1266-72) p. 270; Rotuli Hundredorum (Record Commission) Vol. 1 p. 314-15, 322, 345-6, 398-9; CPR (1324-27 p. 236 (misuse of murage) online copies of CPR
  - Also see the Gatehouse murage pages for full details of murage grants, petitions and other such.
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Camden, Wm, 1607, Britannia hypertext critical edition by Dana F. Sutton (2004)
  Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p. 292-4
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1907, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 1 p. 29-31 online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Historic England, 2016, Heritage at Risk East Midlands Register 2016 (London: Historic England) p. 31, 32 online copy
  Historic England, 2015, Heritage at Risk East Midlands Register 2015 (London: Historic England) p. 32, 33 online copy
  English Heritage, 2014, Heritage at Risk Register 2014 East Midlands (London: English Heritage) p. 32 online copy
  English Heritage, 2013, Heritage at Risk Register 2013 East Midlands (London: English Heritage) p. 32 online copy
  Stocker, David, 2013 Feb 9, Defending the City (Paper give Lincolnshire Castles and Towers Day Conference at Horncastle for the Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology)
  English Heritage, 2012, Heritage at Risk Register 2012 East Midlands (London: English Heritage) p. 44 online copy
  English Heritage, 2010, Heritage at Risk Register 2010 East Midlands (London: English Heritage) p. 35 online copy
  English Heritage, 2009, Heritage at Risk Register 2009 East Midlands (London: English Heritage) p. 43 online copy
  Ambrose, T.M., 1978, The Stonebow and the Guildhall (LCC Museums Info Sheet 2) (unpublished)

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

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.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

Data >	PastScape	County HER	Scheduling	Listing	I. O. E.
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	LiDAR	Open Domesday
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio