Boundaries and walls

 It is likely, but not certain, the early hamlet of Lichfield (Licitfelda) in the 7th to 9th centuries had some kind of vallum surrounding and protecting the settlement. If it was a ditch and bank it would keep in livestock and stop entrance by predators such as wolves and foxes. The settlement might have been similar to the revealed settlement at Catholme, approximately 8 miles north-east of Lichfield.[1] Excavation found a large settlement, also 7th to 9th century, with at least 65 buildings, thought to be half originally present, surrounded by trackways and enclosures.

Pit house similar to buildings uncovered at Catholme

Yards and paddocks were identified and later occupation showed fences around the plots. Two entrances to enclosures held the burial of someone who could have been an early ancestor marking and defining their territory.

             An ecclesiastical settlement might have had a considerable vallum to define the holy landscape in a way found at Iona. In the sandy soils around the churches of Lindisfarne, it is thought the boundary was possibly marked by large stones. A monastic vallum (vallum monasterii) marking the boundary between the sacred and profane space has been postulated.[2]

Profile of one of many banks and ditches reinterpreted from excavations on Iona in 1956–1963.[3]

            A rampart or wall was built around the Cathedral Close in the 12th century organised by Bishop Roger de Clinton.[4] Wharton stated, Castrum Lichesfeldense muniendo villam vallo vallendo milites; ‘Castle Lichfield entrenched by the soldiers of the rampart’ . The word ‘castle’ has teased historians with some suggesting a castle was within the town and the ramparts were around this part of the town.[5] Harwood maintained the whole settlement was entrenched, that is, Clinton fortified the castle, to have made a rampart round the village, and to have enrolled and mustered the soldiers.[6] It is now accepted to have only been a fortification of the Close.[7] The Victorian County History has the Close ‘appears’ to be fortified[8]  and without any  reference, Clinton enclosed the town with a bank and ditch, and gates were set up where roads into the town crossed the ditch. The question arises what sort of fortification was possibly built? The fortification was on three sides and around 300 m long and 250 m wide. The south side stream had been dammed and the pool deemed to protect this side. 

Bishop Clinton from the west front of the cathedral. He is holding an early church and is much like Wing Church, Buckinghamshire, where he was an archdeacon. Victorian antiquarians believed he built the second cathedral, but there is no evidence for this.

             If it was an earth rampart, it might have resembled the imagined bank, ditch and palisade fencing reconstructed from excavations around Tamworth when  made a burh or burg c. 913.

Imagined enclosure at Tamworth ( originally called Tomeworthig).                                                            

 If it was a stone wall, then its appearance is unknown.

 

Imagined stone wall around the cathedral in 12th century. Note the separate bell tower (tall building on west front). The Bishop's Palace is against the east wall. There is no west gate since the causeway over the pool has still to be built.

 In 1956 OS field workers[9] mapped a ditch cut around the Close between 1299 and 1312.[10]^{, [11]} This connects with Bishop Walter de Langton obtaining a licence, 1299, to strengthen and crenellate the boundary walls.[12] Another account has he refortified the Close with a stone wall.[13] Harwood has he cleaned the ditch around the Close, and surrounded it with a stone wall.[14] He added, the Close, was surrounded by water, and fortified by walls and bastions, and was a place of considerable strength.[15]

Victoria County History stated Langton had constructed a stone perimeter wall with massive gatehouses at the south and west entrances.[16] Clayton in a seminal work[17] on the Civil War sieges stated “Langton fortified the Close by surrounding the whole of it (including the south side) with stone walls, built in a handsome manner and strengthened with towers and turrets. To the west and south of these fortifications were gates, each furnished with a portcullis and a drawbridge to give access over a moat” Thick oak doors (double?) must have been present. This fortification must have come immediately prior to the first use of cannon; 1324 in the siege of Metz, France, and possibly in 1327, when used in battle by the English against the Scots. Probably the wall had to be reinforced soon after the age of cannon began. Maddison expresses it as Edward I’s marshalling point for his three campaigns of 1277, 1282 and 1294.[18] It thus finds parallels with the building of castles at Caernarvon and Beaumaris at this time.

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[Whether all this fortification was completed in the early 14th century, or added in the intervening 300 years to the English Civil War is unclear, but by 1643 the fortified cathedral must have appeared impregnable. Coventry had greater fortifications with 20 towers, 12 gates and walling 2 miles (3.2km) long. Started in 1355, it took 180 years to complete.

Reconstruction of the fortified cathedral occupied by the Royalists

            Each portcullis could have had a wooden grille covered with iron spikes and slid down grooves in the wall, like those found in Coventry. The walls were 15 m (50 feet) tall and  defended with towers. The tower in the northeast corner, called the bishop’s tower, was 15.8m (52 feet) tall and had 10 sides. The east wall was over 9m (30feet) tall. Building a wide and deep moat on the north side, at 10m higher in elevation than the Minster Pool, and on porous mudstone, unless it was clay lined, seems unlikely, unless it was fed by springs. Lomax said the Close was nearly surrounded by water,[19] others were certain the Close was surrounded by a moat at the time of the Civil War since the besiegers had to drain it.[20] The twin semi-octagonal towers at the Dam Street entrance were completed after 1322 and the west gate c. 1355. Wells Cathedral, 1329, gained a similar crenelated wall with a moat and drawbridge around the bishop's palace.

  

 A recreated view of how the south side might have looked.

  

Layout of Close in the 14th century

Current cathedral ditch has been measured to be 42 m (139 feet) wide, around 6 m (20 feet) deep and with a bank around 2 m high.

[1] S. Losco-Bradley and G. Kinsley, ‘Catholme: An Anglo-Saxon settlement on the Trent gravels in Staffordshire’. Nottingham studies in archaeology. 3. (University of Nottingham: 2002).

[2] D. O’Sullivan,  ‘The plan of the early Christian monastery on Lindisfarne’, in G Bonner, D Rollason and C Stancliffe (eds), St Cuthbert: His Cult and Community, (Woodbridge: 1989) 140.

[3] E. Campell and A. Maldonado, ‘Russell Trust excavations on Iona led by Charles Thomas, 1956–1963’. Report for Historic Environment Scotland, (University of Glasgow: 2016).

[4] H. Wharton, Anglia Sacra (1691),

[5] The site was reputed to be close to the street named ‘Castle Dyke’, between Frog Lane and Wade Street. Leland wrote, “There hathe bene a castle of auncient tyme in the southe ende of the towne, but no parte of it standithe. The plote with the dikes is sene, and is yet caullyd The Castle Felde ; but in my coniecture the more lykely place wher it shuld of very auntient tyme have stond is the very close of the palace. That ground is somewhat castle like. L. Toulmin Smith, The Itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535–1543. (London: 1907–10), 99.

[6] T. Harwood, The history and antiquities of the church and city of Lichfield. (London: 1806).

[7] W. Pitt, Topographical history of Staffordshire. (1817).

[8]  M. W. Greenslade (ed.), 'Lichfield: History to c.1500', in A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 14, Lichfield, (London, 1990), pp. 4-14, note 46..

[9] OS Antiquity Notes, Staffordshire SMR).

[10] T. H. Turner and J. H. Parker, Some account of domestic architecture in England (vols. I-III, 1851-9), 404.

[11] J. Gould, ‘Lichfield: archaeology and development’. (WEMRAC: 1976).

[12] See note 5, John Leland (L. Toulmin Smith) page 102. The whole closse of the cathedral churche was newly dikid and waullyd right strongely by Bysshope Langton, and he made one gate of a majestic, and great strengkith at the west parte of the close, and anothar but a lesse gate at the southeast parte of the close.

[13] See note 4, Wharton, 1691, volume 1, 442.

[14] See note 6 Harwood (1806), 10.

[15] Ibid 20.

[16] Ibid 11, note 404. A licence to build gatehouses and towers was made in 1299.

[17] H. Clayton, Loyal and Ancient City. Lichfield in the Civil Wars. (Lichfield: 1987).

18] J. Maddison, ‘Building at Lichfield Cathedral during the episcopate of Walter Langton, 1296–1321.’ In Medieval archaeology and architecture at Lichfield, XIII, British Archaeological Association (1993), 66.

[19] T. Lomax, A short account of the City and Close of Lichfield. (Lichfield: 1819).

[20] See note 6 Harwood (1806), 25.

12th-century Lichfield.

 Pipes, ditches, crosses streets; Bishop Clinton?

Many of the changes to Lichfield in the first half of the 12th century have been attributed to Bishop Roger Clinton, 1129–1148, in his 19-years episcopate with scant evidence.

Pipe

Between 1140 and 1170, two springs of water at Manor of Pipe (now the Maple Hayes estate) were bought from William Bell of Pipe and the water conveyed through lead pipes, 1½ inches diameter (38 mm) and nicknamed Moses, the 1.4 miles (2.3 k) to the Cathedral Close.[1] It was one of the first medieval piped-water system in Britain. It happened either at the end of the episcopate of Bishop Clinton, or more likely in the time of the following Bishop Durdent since he was at Canterbury when a conduit for water-supply was laid. The original line of the pipe is unknown, but probably entered the close near the north-west corner. This line was later changed and the pipe entered through the Beacon Street west gate. The pipe ended at the stone cross cistern in the north-west corner of the open space in front of the cathedral. In 1786, this was replaced by a cistern and pump and the upper remains of the pump can still be seen. Perhaps the reason to pipe this water was the water near the cathedral had become polluted, possibly from contamination from tanneries and metalworking particularly around Sandford Street. The system was finally abandoned in 1969 after around 800 years of use. The conduit-head still stands in Pipe Park, but no early pipe is known. 

Lichfield with new streets, piped water, gates and ditch. It shows prosperity.

 

Conduit-head remains in the north-west corner of the Close.

 Ditch

Between 1129 and 1135, it is thought, a ditch (or dumble, later dimble) around the coalescing town was dug. This was at the beginning of Roger de Clinton’s episcopate and plaques around the town attribute the town ditch to him.[2] Archaeology showed it was 5 m wide and 2.6 m deep in the section named Castle ditch. Various ditches have been found crossing Sandford Street and they vary from 10 m wide down to 4 m wide and 2 m deep. The line for this west end of the ditch is unclear. Within the ditch has been found a large collection of rubbish, including slag from the Sandford Street area showing this community was engaged in metalworking. A 10 m wide, deep ditch and containing some water would be defensive; it chimes with the fortification of the Close. However, with town gates the purpose of a ditch was more likely to prevent traders entering the town and avoid paying a goods tax at the gate. Tax money that would have ended in the coffers of Bishop Clinton. Enclosing the town also gave an exclusivity to those traders resident within the precincts. They could freely trade within the confines of the town. Additionally, it kept out beggars and criminals. The ditch was likely to have been the responsibility of leaders of the town, sometimes now called a manor or borough. An enclosed manor entitled the residents to have a greater right of citizenship which meant security, responsibility and freedom. They became burgesses.

 

Plaques giving a version of gates and ditches.

 

Crosses

At the Culstubbe Street gate (St John’s Street) stood two crosses known as Bishop Durdent and Bishop Pucelle, and it might be the gates came later. There were crosses at the other gates and this must have signified to pilgrims they had arrived at Lichfield. The crosses deteriorated with time, or disappeared when knocked down by parliamentarian forces in the Civil War.

 Streets

If the Cathedral Close was now fortified, it must have been necessary to clear away dwellings close to the previous palisade ditch. Bishop Clinton might have needed to accommodate his soldiers and this necessitated the commandeering of dwellings. So where did the occupants go? Was this the spur to add five or six streets on an east-west axis and at least four streets on a north-south alignment on wet ground south of the cathedral? It was the formation of an early grid-town[3] and has always been ascribed to Clinton’s benevolent plan for Lichfield. It might also have been a consequence of making a garrisoned close. It certainly came towards the end of his episcopate and followed on with the next bishop. Oddly, the new streets were on a low-lying area wet and easily flooded, so why build there and not on higher ground near Gaia or at Borrowcop. It has been noted the new town was roughly equidistant from the communities in the Close, at Sandford and Greenhill.[4]

     Some accounts have Clinton founding the pilgrim’s house of St John the Baptist in 1135, but the earliest record is a grant given in 1208; an inconsistency mentioned by Harwood.[5] The purpose of the house was to accommodate travellers, especially pilgrims, who arrived when the gates were closed. Its position outside the town enclosure is seen in its current name of St John the Baptist without the Barrs. In 1495, it became an alms-house and hospital providing care, priory, school and home for men.[6]

[1] J. Gould, ‘The twelfth-century water-supply to Lichfield Close’, Antiquaries J, (1976), 56, 1, 73–78.

[2] Clinton also fortified Coventry as part of the siege during the Anarchy. A ditch 1.58 m deep and 7.5 m wide has been excavated at the cathedral site in Coventry.

[3] J. Blair, Building Anglo-Saxon England. (Princeton and Oxford: 2018) thought grids of 12th and 13th century towns were based on irregular parallelograms and conjectured they might have triangulated with ropes which would give poor measuring out. Grids of 40 feet and 41.25 feet have been identified in the street layout.

[4] C. C. Taylor, ‘The origins of Lichfield, Staffordshire’, South Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society transaction. (1969), 10, 43–52.

[5] T. Harwood, The history and antiquities of the church and city of Lichfield. (London: 1806).

[6] Clinton has also been linked with the founding of a small Benedictine nunnery at Farewell.