Worcester's city walls are a sequence of defensive structures built around the city of Worcester in England between the 1st and 17th centuries. The first walls to be built around Worcester were constructed by the Romans. These early walls lasted beyond the fall of the Roman Empire, and the defences encouraged several early Christian foundations to establish themselves in Worcester during the troubled 6th and 7th centuries. The Anglo-Saxons expanded Worcester in the 890s, forming a new walled, planned city, called a burh. The burh utilised the southern stretches of the old Roman walls, but pushed further north to enclose a much larger area. The Anglo-Saxon city walls were maintained by a share of taxes on a local market and streets, in an agreement reinforced by a royal charter.
After the Norman conquest of England in the 11th century a motte and bailey castle was constructed on the south side of the city, but the Norman rulers continued to use the older burh walls, despite the city having expanded beyond these defences in the north and south-east. During the years of the Anarchy in the 1140s, Worcester was successfully attacked several times; after the war a new city wall was built to improve the city's defences. The new walls, completed by the early 13th century, were constructed of stone and had three main gates. They were maintained in good condition into the 17th century.
During the English Civil War in the 1640s the old medieval walls were reinforced with modern earthwork bastions and an outlying fort, called a sconce. Worcester changed hands several times during the conflict, and after the war ended the newer fortifications were dismantled. During the 18th century the older medieval stone walls and gatehouses were sold and mostly destroyed: by the 20th century, few parts survived. Post-war archaeology in the 1950s and 1960s and construction work in the 1970s revealed previously hidden stretches of the wall, and in the 21st century plans have been drawn up to improve the conservation and maintenance of this historic monument.
History
1st–7th centuries
The first defensive walls at Worcester were built after the Roman conquest of Britain in AD 43. Although a settlement existed on the site during the Iron Age, there is no evidence that walls were ever built around it.Worcester City Defences: Conservation Management Plan Oxford Archaeology, p.13, January 2007, retrieved 25 September 2011. The Roman town was probably preceded by the construction of a Roman fort, both located on the south side of the modern city and protected by the River Severn to the west.Worcester City Defences: Conservation Management Plan Oxford Archaeology, pp.12–13, January 2007, retrieved 25 September 2011. There are relatively few historical details or archaeological evidence from this period, but archaeological investigations of the Roman town walls suggest that it had wooden ramparts and was protected by an wide ditch. As with other Roman towns, the walls would have enclosed a rectangular town, protecting a settlement with a grid-like network of streets.Baker and Holt, p.147.
The decline of the Roman Empire brought an end to Roman rule in Britain by the start of the 5th century. The town within the old Roman walls at Worcester continued to be occupied however, remaining a prominent military feature.Baker and Holt, pp.146–147. New Christian religious foundations were established at Worcester during this period, attracted there in large part by the security the Roman defences offered during a troubled period.Barrow, p.128. In the 7th century, Worcester Cathedral was built, once again within the old Roman walls.Worcester City Defences: Conservation Management Plan Oxford Archaeology, pp.13–14, January 2007, retrieved 25 September 2011.
8th–11th centuries During the Anglo-Saxon period, Worcester first became the capital of the Hwicce kingdom, and later formed part of the wider kingdom of Mercia. Worcester and its defences were reorganised by Ealdorman Æthelred and Æthelflæd and bishop Werferth in the 890s.Baker, Dalwood, Holt, Mundy and Taylor, pp.72–73. This involved creating a burh, a fortified Anglo-Saxon town; in Worcester this took the form of a planned settlement, extending out from the old Roman defences, with the Shambles forming a street running along the wall on the east.Baker, Dalwood, Holt, Mundy and Taylor, p.73; Creighton and Higham, p.60. Archaeological evidence suggests that the burh had of walls in total; documentary evidence from the Burghal Hidage document, written shortly after the creation of the walls, suggests they were long, a discrepancy that may be accounted for by changes in the course of the river since the 10th century.Hill and Rumble, pp.96–97. The walls incorporated the old Roman fortifications on the south and south-east side of the city and appear to have included a defensive ditch, with a revetment supporting a wooden palisade.Worcester City Defences: Conservation Management Plan Oxford Archaeology, pp.14–15, January 2007, retrieved 25 September 2011.
The creation of the burh walls is recorded in a charter witnessed by King Alfred, which lays out the responsibilities of the various churchmen and nobles involved, and notes that the upkeep of the walls would be paid for out of a share of taxes on a new market and on the new streets.Creighton and Higham, p.58; Russo, p.212. The local lords took responsibility for building the burh wall, which unusually for the period was not built on royal lands.Russo, p.212. During the 10th century, the documents on the burh suggest that the aristocratic thegns living around Worcester also owned and maintained buildings within the walls; Creighton and Higham suggest that these may have been linked to their responsibilities for defending the settlement.Creighton and Higham, p.58.
During the 10th and 11th centuries Worcester spread north beyond the original burh walls, and south-east to form Sidbury.Baker, Dalwood, Holt, Mundy and Taylor, p.73. In 1041 Worcester was attacked by the royal army of Harthacnut over a tax-dispute that had led to the death of two of the king's men; despite the defensive walls, the city was successfully taken and burnt.The city of Worcester: Introduction and borough, A History of the County of Worcester: volume 4 (1924), pp. 376–390, Victoria County History, retrieved 3 October 2011.
11th–16th centuries
In 1066 William the Conqueror defeated the English army at the battle of Hastings and Norman forces advanced west into Worcestershire. To reinforce their occupation, the Normans built a motte and bailey castle on the south side of the city, taking advantage of the shape of the existing burh walls. The remaining burh walls continued to be used into the Norman period, but the city had already spread beyond them, reducing their effectiveness.Worcester City Defences: Conservation Management Plan Oxford Archaeology, p.15, January 2007, retrieved 25 September 2011.
During the Anarchy (1135–1153) rival factions of King Stephen and the Empress Matilda contested the kingdom and Worcestershire proved to be a key battleground. The first attack on Worcester itself occurred in late 1139 when an Angevin army from Gloucestershire assaulted the city. After an attempt to take the castle on the south side of the city, the Gloucester forces entered from the north, looting and burning.Bradbury, p.85. Worcester became a base for Stephen's forces for a period, before joining the Empress's faction.Bradbury, p.156. In response, Stephen first stormed and burnt the city in 1148, and then attacked it again in 1150, shortly before the end of the conflict.Bradbury, pp.156, 182. From the accounts of these sieges, it appears that Worcester still lacked substantial walls during this period.Worcester City Defences: Conservation Management Plan Oxford Archaeology, pp.15–16, January 2007, retrieved 25 September 2011.
In the second half of the 12th century a new city wall began to be built around Worcester, with work probably continuing until early the next century.Worcester City Defences: Conservation Management Plan Oxford Archaeology, pp.15–16, January 2007, retrieved 25 September 2011; Bradley and Gaimster, p.274; Youngs and Clark, p.208. Enclosing about , its design tracked the flow of natural streams to the north and east, and made use of the castle in the south as part of the defences. The walls were constructed of sandstone, and appear to have been surrounded by a flat bottomed, water-filled ditch, more than wide.Baker and Holt, p.188; The city of Worcester: Introduction and borough, A History of the County of Worcester: volume 4 (1924), pp. 376–390, Victoria County History, retrieved 3 October 2011; Worcester City Defences: Conservation Management Plan Oxford Archaeology, p.12, January 2007, retrieved 25 September 2011. The new walls cut across existing parts of the city and would have required the demolition of numerous existing buildings that lay in their way; the new defences also cut off the outlying districts of Sidbury, Lowesmoore, Foregate Street and The Tything from the inside of the walled city. Three main gates were built in the walls – North Gate, St Martin's Gate and Sidbury Gate – protected by gatehouses of paired circular towers and arrowslits for use by crossbowmen. Smaller gates were built between them, such as Friar's Gate.Baker and Holt, p.188; Worcester City Defences: Conservation Management Plan Oxford Archaeology, p.16, January 2007, retrieved 25 September 2011.
Civil war broke out again in England in 1215 between forces loyal to King John and rebel barons, supported in due course by Prince Louis of France, in what has become known as the First Barons' War. Worcester sided with the rebels, and in July 1216 the city was attacked by forces under the command of Ranulf, the Earl of Chester. Ranulf attempted to storm the castle, rather than the north side of the city, and after he eventually gained access a £100 fine was imposed on the city with the threat that their walls would be destroyed if the money was not paid.Worcester City Defences: Conservation Management Plan Oxford Archaeology, pp.16–17, January 2007, retrieved 25 September 2011. Although Worcester's walls clearly played a military role during this period, they would also have been symbolically important to the city and have played a part in controlling civic access and enforcing the city's laws.Creighton and Higham, pp.36–37.
One method of paying for the construction and maintenance of city walls was a tax called murage, usually levied by permission of the king on particular goods being imported into a city. In Worcester, murage was raised to support work on the walls during three main phases, 1224 to 1239, 1252 to 1310 and 1364 to 1411.Baker and Holt, p.188. Worcester was attacked again during the Second Barons' War in the 1260s, and the records suggest that some of the murage payments were used to repair damage caused by that attack. In the late 14th century a watergate was built in the western walls of the city, close to a slipway for launching boats.Creighton and Higham, p.173. Worcester's last murage grant occurred in 1439, although in 1459 Henry VI allowed the city to use stones from the castle to repair the walls to defend the city in anticipation of a Yorkist attack during the Wars of the Roses. As in many other English towns and cities, as the medieval period progressed, housing began to encroach on the city walls in Worcester.
17th–19th centuries