Ellesmere Town Defences (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Ellesmere Urban.
In the historic county of Shropshire.
Modern Authority of Shropshire.
1974 county of Shropshire.
Medieval County of Shropshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SJ402348
Latitude 52.90754° Longitude -2.88940°

Ellesmere Town Defences has been described as a Urban Defence although is doubtful that it was such.

There are no visible remains.

Description

In 1258 Peter de Montfort was empowered to raise money to enable him to wall the town of Ellesmere (Eyton 1860, 240). At present there is no documentary or archaeological evidence that the defences were built. If they were in fact constructed, their location and the date at which they went out of use remains to be demonstrated. It has been suggested that in the mid-13th century Ellesmere was restricted to an area to the west of the church and that Watergate Street represents the line of the town defences (Anon 1957-60, 3). The town was quite small at this time, with only 59 burgages recorded in 1280 (Sylvester 1969, 310), but even so this seems too large a settlement to have been protected by defences on the high ground above Watergate Street and Birch Road. For the purposes of this assessment a defensive circuit following Church Street, Willow Street, and running behind St John's Street, is suggested. This is provisional, based on topographical and cartographic evidence, and should be tested archaeologically. (Dalwood and Bryant 2005)

Comments

A single grant of murage, for 5 years, in a relatively small market town, is unlikely to have raised sufficient money for a building programme, although funding for such a project did not have to raised from murage alone. At best the grant may suggest an intent to build walls, although probably for their prestigious quality rather than any defensive reason. At worst Montfort was increasing his income from the town market by a manipulative play on people's fears.
Map reference for parish church which should have been within any intended circuit.

Sources of information, references and further reading

County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 05297.

Books
- Salter, Mike, 2013, Medieval Walled Towns (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 64
  Creighton, O.H. and Higham, R.A., 2005, Medieval Town Walls (Stroud: Tempus) p. 266
  Salter, Mike, 2001 (2edn), The Castles and Moated Mansions of Shropshire (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 42 (mention)
  Sylvester, D., 1969, The rural landscape of the Welsh Borderland: a study in historical geography (Macmillian)
  Eyton, R.W., 1860, Antiquities of Shropshire (London: John Russell Smith) Vol. 10 p. 240 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), 1908, Calendar of Patent Rolls Henry III (1247-58) Vol. 4 p. 640 online copy
  - Also see the Gatehouse murage pages for full details of murage grants, petitions and other such.
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Dalwood, H. and Bryant, V. (eds), 2005, The Central Marches Historic Towns Survey 1992-6 Download online copy
  Buteux, V., 1993-96, CMHTS SMR Records Shropshire: Ellesmere and High Ercall, Ellesmere 5297

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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.

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Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

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