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Nottingham Town Wall

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Chapel Bar; Cowlane Bar; St John's Bar; Swine Bar

In the civil parish of Nottingham.
In the historic county of Nottinghamshire.
Modern Authority of Nottingham; City of.
1974 county of Nottinghamshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SK568399
Latitude 52.95039° Longitude -1.15115°

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

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.
Description

Medieval town defences, which excavation has revealed to have consisted of a wall and ditch, probably built between 1267 and 1334. Short sections remain of C12 earth and stone walls based on, and expanded from Saxon burh of 921. First murage granted 1267 and others were received until C15.

The walls were built between 1267 and 1337. During this period murage had been levied in order to fund the work. One small stretch of the wall survives and is designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It is on public display and is visible through a display screen accessible from Maid Marion Way. The wall was predominantly during the 17th century and a stretch of it is visible on John Speed's map of 1610. The part shown on the map is that to the west of the town. Later maps, including Thoroton's map of 1677 does not illustrate the wall, though the Chapel Bar gateway, at the north west of the town, is clearly visible. This gate was demolished in 1743.

Archaeological excavations and other interventions have failed to locate evidence of the wall existing on the east side of the town. It is suggested that the wall never actually existed for this part of the town. The cliffs to the south of the Post Conquest town acted as a natural defence. (pers corr Scott Lomax - Urban Archaeological Database Office for Nottingham)
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Sources of information, references and further reading

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The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of English Heritage, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. 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.
I do not receive any income from this site and I fund it myself. The information within this site is provided freely by me 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.
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This record last updated on Friday, May 3, 2013
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