Wells City Wall (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Welles

In the civil parish of Wells.
In the historic county of Somerset.
Modern Authority of Somerset.
1974 county of Somerset.
Medieval County of Somerset.

OS Map Grid Reference: ST546456
Latitude 51.20840° Longitude -2.65038°

Wells City Wall has been described as a Urban Defence although is doubtful that it was such.

There are no visible remains.

Comments

A licence to crenellate and, three days later, a grant of murage for 5 years in 1341 to the mayor, bailiffs and burgesses. The licence to crenellate was revoked shortly afterward (per considerationem curie) and presumably the murage was not collected. Bond writes C14 Stone walls planned but probably never built or never completed. There is probably some confusion between the walls of the extensive cathedral close (ibid) (the work of the Bishop, Dean and Chapter) licensed in 1340 but possible not completed until licensed again in 1451 and any defences planed by the town (Mayor and burgesses).
Quite what the specific problems the church had with town walls are not expressed. However, town walls would have allowed the town to control access to pilgrims (some of whom may well have had contagious diseases) and to more effectively collect market tolls. The Cathedral would not have wanted anything to either reduce the number of pilgrims or the amount of money they had available to spend on the churches goods and services.
Map reference for the very large St Cuthbert's parish church of Wells which certainly would have been in the intended circuit of the walls.

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 197153.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 24810.

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. 26, 48, 207, 218, 257
  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
  Haslam, Jeremy (ed), 1984, Anglo-Saxon towns in southern England p. 193-4
  Faull, Margaret L. (ed), 1984, Studies in late Anglo-Saxon settlement p. 16
  Aston, M. and Leech, R., 1977, Historic towns in Somerset (Bristol: Committee for Rescue Archaeology in Avon, Gloucestershire and Somerset) p. 147-154
  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
  Turner, H.L., 1971, Town Defences in England and Wales (London) p. 200
Periodical Articles
- Creighton, Oliver, 2006, ''Castles of Communities': Medieval Town Defences in England; Wales and Gascony' Château Gaillard Vol. 22 p. 75-86
  Coulson, Charles, 1993 Aug, 'Specimens of Freedom to Crenellate by Licence' Fortress: The castles and fortifications quarterly Vol. 18 p. 3-15 (reprinted in Liddiard, Robert (ed), 2016, Late Medieval Castles (Boydell Press) p. 221-240)
  Rodwell, W., 1980, Current Archaeology Vol. 73 p. 38-44
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), 1916, Calendar of Charter Rolls 15 Edward III - 5 Henry V 1341-1417 Vol. 5. (HMSO) p. 6-7 (licence to crenellate) online copy
  Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed), 1900, Calendar of Patent Rolls Edward III (1340-43) Vol. 5 p. 248 (murage grant) 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