Guildford Town Defences (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Guildford.
In the historic county of Surrey.
Modern Authority of Surrey.
1974 county of Surrey.
Medieval County of Surrey.

OS Map Grid Reference: SU996493
Latitude 51.23459° Longitude -0.57456°

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

There are no visible remains.

Description

The old defensible town ditch of Guildford ran, as the names indicate, from the Dominican Friary near the river along North Street (the North ditch) and round to South treet. (the South ditch). This connected with the Castle Ditch (now Castle Street.). It has been traced at the corner of Chertsey Street. and right across Trinity churchyard between these two lines. When the church was enlarged in 1888, and graves were removed in consequence, the ditch was traced, with much Mediaeval pottery in it. It is possible the oldest town was walled and of yet smaller dimensions. A very thick ancient clunch wall, with a well on its South side, showing that to be the inside, ran about 30 yards South of the High Street, nearly parallel to it. It would have included St Mary's Church, and a small town around the Castle mount. If this was so, the High Street itself was originally a suburban extension, later included by the ditch (VCH). No traces of the town wall or ditch are now visible. (F1 ASP 27-NOV-58). There is insufficient evidence for siting the course of the town ditch. No early literary references were encountered and early maps show nothing that could be associated with the features described by VCH (F2 EGG 03-JAN-59). (PastScape)

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 250289.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 1647.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Guildford Borough webpage (History)
Books
- Salter, Mike, 2013, Medieval Walled Towns (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 74
  Creighton, O.H. and Higham, R.A., 2005, Medieval Town Walls (Stroud: Tempus) p. 258
  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
  Clinch and Montgomerie, 1911, Malden, H.E. (ed), VCH Surrey Vol. 3 p. 547 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
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Surrey County Council, 2006, Extensive Urban Survey - Surrey (English Heritage) Download 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.

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