Identifier: vanishingengland00ditc (find matches)
Title: Vanishing England
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Ditchfield, P. H. (Peter Hampson), 1854-1930
Subjects: England -- Description and travel England -- Antiquities
Publisher: London : Methuen
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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and were protectedby walls, and the citizens regarded it as a duty to buildthem and keep them in repair. When we look at some ofthese fortifications, their strength, their height, their thick-ness, we are struck by the fact that they were very greatachievements, and that they must have been raised withimmense labour and gigantic cost. In turbulent and war-like times they were absolutely necessary. Look at someof these triumphs of medieval engineering skill, so strong,so massive, able to defy the attacks of lance and arrow,ram or catapult, and to withstand ages of neglect and thestorms of a tempestuous clime. Towers and bastionsstood at intervals against the wall at convenient distances,in order that bowmen stationed in them could shoot downany who attempted to scale the wall with ladders anywhere 3° VANISHING ENGLAND within the distance between the towers. All along thewall there was a protected pathway for the defenders tostand, and machicolations through which boiling oil or *^>
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t*6*\ pVo^. Old Houses built on the Town Wall, Rye V lead, or heated sand could be poured on the heads of theattacking force. The gateways were carefully constructed,flanked by defending towers with a portcullis, and aguard-room overhead with holes in the vaulted roof of thegateway for pouring down inconvenient substances uponthe heads of the besiegers. There were several gates, the OLD WALLED TOWNS 31 usual number being four ; but Coventry had twelve,Canterbury six, and Newcastle-on-Tyne seven, besidesposterns. Berwick-upon-Tweed, York, Chester, and Conwayhave maintained their walls in good condition. Berwickhas three out of its four gates still standing. They arecalled Scotchgate, Shoregate, and Cowgate, and in thelast two still remain the original massive wooden gateswith their bolts and hinges. The remaining fourth gate,named Bridgate, has vanished. We have alluded to theneglect of the Edwardian wall and its threatened destruc-tion. Conway has a wall a mile and a quarter in length

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