2,000 Years of Fencing Around Town and Country
The lower level of McDonald’s on Pride Hill in Shrewsbury is a handsome stone-walled room. The brightly clad customers munching hamburgers couldn’t be more 21st-century, but the huge stones and curious nooks of those gray walls date to 1220, when Henry II began building them to protect Shrewsbury from invaders from Wales, just nine miles away. Another section called Town Walls is now a street overlooking the River Severn.
Similarly, Bath, has a street called Borough Walls. Its castellations are at shoulder height—a tip off that most of the wall is now underground. The walls of some old cities—Bristol for example—have entirely disappeared. Other places, such as York and Richmond in Yorkshire, and Tenby and Denbigh in Wales, still have sizeable stretches of their old walls, and a few cities, including Chester and Berwick-on-Tweed, and Conwy and Caernarfon in Wales, retain their walls virtually intact.
Monuments of military and civic architecture, walls typically command wide views across the surrounding country as well as pretty peeks into the gardens, churchyards, and waterways tucked into their shadows. Walking along them spirits you to the heart of the problems that prompted their building, and on through centuries of tinkering that have shaped some of them for their starring roles today.
Many of Britain’s walls were founded by the Romans, who began settling in Britain after ad 43, and used their advanced engineering skills to protect their new settlements and military camps with ditches and fortified walls. The remains of their work survive in Hadrian’s Wall across the entire north of England, the Antonine Wall in Scotland, and the walls of around London, York and Chester. But when 5th-century invaders began harrying their empire, the Romans abandoned Britain, leaving their walls untended. Parts fell, destroyed either by townspeople reusing the stones for other buildings or by invading attackers. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that when the Vikings raided 9th-century Chester they found the walls “all waste.”
Athelflaeda, the Lady of Mercia and its de facto ruler from 911 to 918, came to Chester’s rescue. She rebuilt the walls as part of her strategy of fortifying the Northwest to fend off invaders. Worcester’s walls were also rebuilt by the Anglo-Saxons. Later medieval rulers, worried about potential attacks from Wales, Scotland or France, reestablished the walls at Bath, Canterbury, Portsmouth and Southampton, and ringed cities such as Bristol and Newcastle-on-Tyne with new walls. Most dramatically, Edward I created entirely new walled cities at Caernarfon and Conwy in North Wales. He also walled Berwick-on-Tweed in Northumberland, a town that had been Scottish until he conquered it. In 1558 fears that the Scots would retake it prompted Queen Mary—already grieving the loss of Calais—to replace Edward’s walls with the newest Italian-style bastioned fortifications and ramparts. These Tudor walls are among the best preserved in Britain.
‘Monuments of military and civic architecture, walls command wide views across the surrounding country as well as pretty peeks into gardens, churchyards and waterways’
Royal rivalry over border territories and aristocratic jostling for power, notably in the Wars of the Roses, meant that walls remained important defenses until the 17th-century Civil War (1642-1651). Since walled cities were typically centers of local government, many were Royalist, and King Charles I ordered the strengthening of walls at Shrewsbury, Worcester and Chester.
When Chester capitulated to its Puritan besiegers in 1645, it was not because the five-month bombardment had smashed the walls, but because its inhabitants were dying of starvation.
While rulers built walls primarily to defend cities from attack, they also had an economic function. People bringing their wares to market had to pay fees or tolls before passing through the gates. While entry tolls could be used to pay for the upkeep of the walls, residents were often assessed a maintenance tax called a murrage. It was rarely popular, and in peaceful times was often hard to collect. As walls lost their defensive and economic importance in the 18th century and after, they were often neglected, incorporated into other building, or even destroyed to make ways for new structures and roads. But parts of the old walls remain in more than 70 British towns and cities, and visiting them is the ideal way to get your bearings about the geography of the town and what has made it prosper, both yesterday and today.
The Antonine Wall
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Caernarfon
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After Edward I conquered North Wales he held it by building huge castles complete with a town and a defensive wall. Caernarfon, his capital, was the most impressive with walls and fortifications mimicking those of Constantinople. Built between 1283 and 1287, the walls remain complete except for a breach fittingly called Hole-in-the-Wall, and made in the 1770s to accommodate a road. Apart from short sections included on some guided tours, visitors cannot follow the tracks of the guards who patrolled the top. But you can walk round the perimeter, perhaps popping in and out of the gates to visit the shops and cafes that beckon from the grid of streets inside. Charming as these are, nothing detracts from severity of these walls with their eight massive towers and gates. Even the 1302 garrison church of St. Mary, built into the wall at Church Street, is austere. Among Britain’s city walls, Caernarfon’s stand out as a formidable and intimidating defense. Along with Conwy and Edward’s castles at Harlech and Beaumaris, Caernarforn forms a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Chester
Walking its walls is the best introduction to Chester because they completely encircle the city, passing close to all its major sights. Still important to residents as walkways, they therefore have many access points, notably the four ancient gates Northgate, Bridgegate, Eastgate and Watergate, and the 20th-century Newgate. The Romans began building the walls in ad 70. At Newgate, the walls overlook Roman remains including a watchtower, the amphitheatre and a collection of Roman artifacts in the Roman Garden.
ISTOCK/CARONB
The walls also skirt later monuments of Chester’s history. The late-Norman Old Dee Bridge, which leads to Bridgegate, once separated England from Wales. The Cathedral, near Eastgate, is also Norman, dating from 1093 (though with many later additions). Between Eastgate and Northgate lies King Charles’ Tower, where Charles I watched his army defeated at Rowton Moor. Beyond this lies the Water Tower, marking the site of the ancient port, and the Roodee racecourse. Dating from 1539, it’s Britain’s oldest. Later eras contributed Pemberton’s Parlour, a resting place for 18th-century promenaders, and the magnificent clock straddling the Eastgate and commemorating Queen Victoria’s 1897 Diamond Jubilee.
ISTOCK/PETER ETCHELLS
Conwy
Leading from the castle, the walls of Conwy form a triangle around one of Wales’s prettiest towns. Built by Edward I between 1283 and 1287, they have 21 towers and three double-towered gates. Visitors can walk out to their furthest point overlooking the harbor, which was crucial to Edward’s military plans. and remained a significant commercial port until the 20th century. It’s now popular with sailors. The walls open up glorious vistas over the Conwy estuary and Snowdonia, Together with Caernarfon, Conwy is in the UNESCO World Heritage Site, cited for “the finest examples of late 13th and early 14th-century military architecture in Europe.” (These walls have many steps and footing is uneven, making them unsuitable for wheelchairs.)
Hadrian’s Wall
In ad 122 Emperor Hadrian had a wall built stretching 73 miles across England from the River Tyne in the east to the Solway Firth. Though it was fortified, it marked the then northernmost border of the Roman Empire, and travelers had to pay tolls to enter. Its whitewashed stones reflected the northern light making it visible and awe-inspiring for miles. Today, much of the wall remains as a major destination for walkers following the 84-mile National Trail from Wallsend in the east and passing through some of England’s most beautiful farmland and moorland scenery to Bowness-on-Solway in the west. The walk is not especially difficult, and can be broken into six sections.
London
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Built by the Romans in the second century and maintained for centuries, London’s three-mile wall reached along the Thames and around the area known as the City. Effectively it disappeared starting in the 18th century, as it was incorporated into other buildings or destroyed to make way for new. Now parts have been exposed. Their circuit can be traced starting just outside the Tower of London Underground station, where there is the foundation of a fortified tower, a high stretch of wall and a statue of the Emperor Trajan. Wall maps with historical information direct you from point to point, including the Barbican, which has a bastion and other remains.
York
With 2.5 miles of wall and five main gates—called bars —York claims the longest town walls in England. The Romans began building them around ad 70, and the Multiangular Tower in the Museum Gardens remains from that era, as does the section from Bootham Bar to Monk Bar. After being largely destroyed by the Danes, the walls were rebuilt by the Normans and their medieval descendents. In 1501, Bootham Bar, home to the medieval market, installed a knocker for Scotsmen, who had to be vetted before entering. The walls provide marvelous and changing views of York Minster, one of England’s finest cathedrals, as well as numerous views of the city’s ancient streets.
ISTOCK/STEVE GEER