Poole Town Wall (The Gatehouse Record)

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

OS Map Grid Reference: SZ01249094
Latitude 50.73027° Longitude -2.00586°

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

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

This is a Grade 2 listed building protected by law*.

Description

An embattled gate and wall were erected at the landward approach to the town after a licence was granted in 1433. These defences were considerably strengthened during the Civil War, and were demolished by order of Charles II. The gate stood at the north end of Towngate Street (Smith).
The site of the Town Gate is now built over, but in view of the line of the Town Dyke, it was probably in the area SZ 01249093 (Field Investigators Comments-F1 FDC 03-DEC-51). (PastScape)

The Towngate may date from 1433 when a license for the island's defensive wall was granted from Henry VI who made the town a Port of the Staple. The Towngate was never excavated to any depth to discover its character though the ditch that flanked it was revealed when the station hotel site was excavated.…
Archaeological excavations in the 1970s and 1980s around the church precinct have revealed the origins of settlement and the medieval shoreline. The crenellated 16th century stone wall at the rear of the Mansion House Hotel marks the former shoreline which came up to the rear of buildings on Thames Street until the land was reclaimed in Tudor times.…
All that remains visible, aside from the Town Cellars, of the 16th century waterside structures is the crenulated stone wall up to 1 metre thick, partly in place at the rear of 5 Thames Street on St. Clements Lane. The wall gives an indication of where the shoreline met the land. The wall is identified as “Watergate and Remains of Town Wall” on the 1887 OS Map.…
The town gate area was developed from the 15th century when a license for a wall came with the 1433 grant from King Henry VI, which made it Dorset's Port of Staple and one of only six towns in England to which such permissions were given. As such, a drawing of the castellated Towngate appears at the top of the peninsula where it meets the land, on the first map of the town (probably 1617-1625). A section of the ditch dug alongside the gate, across the peninsula, which practically made it an island, was found in the 1976 excavation of the Station Hotel site by IP Horsey. A massive stone structure was identified during the construction of the Towngate Bridge in 1970/71 when the engineers uncovered a stone boundary marker and other stone debris. The 1976 excavation of the ditch revealed Victorian building debris evidence of the levelling of the towngate site. (Poole Town Centre Heritage Character Statement)

A Royal licence to crenellate was granted in 1433 July 8 (Click on the date for details of this licence.).
A Royal licence to crenellate was confirmed in 1462 Jan 20.

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1217526
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 458242; 458248; 458266.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 5 000 423.

Books
- Salter, Mike, 2013, Medieval Walled Towns (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 119
  Creighton, O.H. and Higham, R.A., 2005, Medieval Town Walls (Stroud: Tempus) p. 183, 221, 258
  Salter, Mike, 2002, The Castles of Wessex (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 23
  Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge: Boydell Press) p. 69 (slight)
  Horsey, Ian, 1992, Excavations in Poole, 1973-1983 (Dorset Natural History & Archaeological Society monograph series 10)
  Sutton J., 1988, The Story of Poole (Poole) p. 5
  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. 130
  Horsey, I., 1976, Archaeological excavations (Department of the Environment) p. 115
  Pevsner, N. and Newman J., 1972, Buildings of England: Dorset (London) p. 322
  Turner, H.L., 1971, Town Defences in England and Wales (London) p. 198
  RCHME, 1970, An inventory of historical monuments in the County of Dorset Vol. 2: south-east (HMSO) p. 205 online transcription
  Smith, H.P., 1948, History of Poole Vol. 1 p. 191-2
  Hutchins, J., 1861-73 (3edn), History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset (Blandford) Vol. 1 p. 44
  Brannon, 1857, Guide to Poole p. 35
  Sydenham, John, 1839, The History of the Town and Country of Poole (Poole) p. 94-5, 161 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
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), 1907, Calendar of Patent Rolls Henry VI (1429-36) Vol. 2 p. 298 (licence to crenellate) online copy
  Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed), 1897, Calendar of Patent Rolls Edward IV (1461-67) p. 74 online copy
  - 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. 138
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1907, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 1 p. 254-5 online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- 2011, Poole Town Centre Heritage Character Statement (Borough of Poole) 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.

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.

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