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Lincoln City Wall

In the civil parish of Lincoln.
In the historic county of Lincolnshire.
Modern Authority of Lincolnshire.
1974 county of Lincolnshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SK977715
Latitude 53.22922° Longitude -0.54048°

Lincoln City Wall has been described as a certain Urban Defence.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.
This is a Grade 1 listed building protected by law*.

Description

Romen wall remained in commission, with extensions, throughout the Middle Ages, few fragments remain but include the Roman Newport Arch in Bailgate and Stonebow, a medieval gatehouse housing a guildhall on its upper floor, over the High Street. First murage grant in 1225 and frequent others in C13/C14.

The circuit of the walls never enclosed all the residences of the city even when original built by the Roman's. The medieval city markets and many residences were mainly outside the walls but were defined by ditched embankments and toll bars. Little remains of the walls (except where they form the circuit of the castle or cathedral close). Although murage was collected in the C13/C14 the grants were not as extensive as other cities (notably York) and seem to be often misapplied. However, there was some extension of the Roman Wall in the medieval period when two short sections of walling extended the lower city wall to the river and gates were built at the southern end of Wigford suburb (which was otherwise delineated by the River Witham on the north and west and the Sincil Dyke - a water filled ditch - on the east).

Descriptions of the town walls tend to concentrate on the Roman walls and, outside of specialists publications, little attention is given to the medieval adaptations of these Roman walls and gates and the new medieval defences. The city wall is legally protected as numerous scheduled monuments (Old county monument numbers li4; 17, 18, 19, 35, 37,68, 114, 165, 187, 253, 281 – none of these records were reviewed under the Monuments Protection Programme and currently (July 2013) no online copy of the description is available) and listed building reports. The archaeological databases also reflect this with numerous entries for the defences. It is difficult to find any resource that gives an overall description of all the medieval defences of Lincoln
Links to mapping and other online resources
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Sources of information, references and further reading

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 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.
Please help me to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting me if you see errors or if you can add information.
I do acknowledge the help I get.
*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.
This record last updated on Monday, July 29, 2013
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