Woodstock Town Defences (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Woodstock.
In the historic county of Oxfordshire.
Modern Authority of Oxfordshire.
1974 county of Oxfordshire.
Medieval County of Oxfordshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SP443167
Latitude 51.84728° Longitude -1.35713°

Woodstock Town Defences has been described as a probable Urban Defence.

There are no visible remains.

Description

C14 wall projected but probably never built or never completed. (Bond)

Although the town was granted murage in 1322 (Cal. Pat. 1321-4, 42) there is no sign of fortification except for the park walls. There were bars at the town's entrances. Ale Bar gate on the Oxford road, recorded in 1504, was presumably the gate at the Town's End or Oxford gate referred to in C17. (Boro. Mun. 83/1 p 43; ibid. 79, ff. 171v.-172) In the early C16 there were bars on the east side of the town, (P.R.O., E 134/25 Eliz. I/Hil. 4) one probably on the present Hensington Road, another near the north end of Common Acre, barring the lane called Hensington Way or the way to Banbury. (Ibid.; Magd. Coll. Mun., Woodstock deeds no. 2; above, Intro) In 1583 it was recalled that the townsmen had received Henry VIII at Castle Hill, (P.R.O., E 134/25 Eliz. I/Hil. 4) apparently at the north end of Common Acre. In 1436 a toft and croft at the north end of Oxford Street extended eastwards to 'Castle Wall', (Magd. Coll. Mun., Woodstock deeds no. 2, of which missing words are supplied by ibid. EP 110/35) and a street, possibly the later Upper Brook Hill, leading to the same feature was mentioned c. 1461; (Boro. Mun. 83/1 p 4) there was apparently a small earthwork near the north end of Union Street in C19. (O.S. Map , 500, Oxon. XXVI. 8 (1876 edn.)) The nature of the 'castle' is unknown: an adulterine castle said to have been built at Woodstock by the Empress Maud may have been merely a fortification of the king's houses in the park. (Blenheim Mun., plans in wooden chest.) (VCH)

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 623310.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 4884.

Books
- Salter, Mike, 2013, Medieval Walled Towns (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 157 (slight)
  Creighton, O.H. and Higham, R.A., 2005, Medieval Town Walls (Stroud: Tempus) p. 258
  Crossley, Alan (ed), 1990, 'Woodstock: Development of the town' VCH Oxfordshire Vol. 12 p. 333-42 online transcription
  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
  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
Periodical Articles
- Creighton, Oliver, 2006, ''Castles of Communities': Medieval Town Defences in England; Wales and Gascony' Château Gaillard Vol. 22 p. 75-86
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), 1904, Calendar of Patent Rolls Edward II (1321-24) Vol. 4 p. 42 online copy
  - Also see the Gatehouse murage pages for full details of murage grants, petitions and other such.

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.

Data >	PastScape	County HER
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