page_title: Canterbury city walls
section_title: 11th–13th centuries
hierarchical_section_title: Canterbury city walls / History / 11th–13th centuries
caption_attribution_description: The donjon mound with memorial, Dane John Gardens, Canterbury, Kent. Seen from the (rebuilt) medieval city wall. (description by JackyR from local knowledge)
context_page_description: Canterbury city walls are a sequence of defensive walls built around the city of Canterbury in Kent, England. The first city walls were built by the Romans, probably between 270 and 280 AD. These walls were constructed from stone on top of an earth bank, and protected by a ditch and wall towers. At least five gates were placed into the walls, linked to the network of Roman roads across the region. With the collapse of Roman Britain, Canterbury went into decline but the walls remained, and may have influenced the decision of Augustine to settle in the city at the end of the 6th century. The Anglo-Saxons retained the defensive walls, building chapels over most of the gates and using them to defend Canterbury against Viking incursions.
  The Norman invaders of the 11th century took the city without resistance, and by the 12th century the walls were ill-maintained and of little military value. Fears of a French invasion during the Hundred Years' War led to an enquiry into Canterbury's defences in 1363.
context_section_description: The inhabitants of Canterbury put up no resistance to the Normans during their conquest of England in 1066. William the Conqueror instructed that a castle was to be built in the city; Canterbury Castle was built on the south side of the city and formed part of the circuit of defence, with property being destroyed to make room for it. Despite its location along the walls, archaeologists Oliver Creighton and Robert Higham have observed that the castle was not an "addition" to the defences, but more an "imposition" on the town within it. The first timber motte and bailey castle was later abandoned and a second, with a square, stone keep, built in 1123. The Worth Gate became the south entrance to the castle site, and a new gate was put into the walls to the east for general use.
  In 1086, the Domesday Book recorded that 11 houses had been built in the ditches around the city walls, which by then appear to have been in a poor condition. The encroachment was possibly the result of population pressures on the inner, walled city, as Canterbury had spread out well beyond the walls by the mid-11th century. It is unclear how the walls were maintained during this period, and by the 12th century they were in ruins and of little practical defensive value. In the late-12th century, the walls were assigned some limited royal funding through the local sheriff, probably for the maintenance of existing structures, and just over £5 was spent in 1166–67 on these repairs.
  Wooden "bars" had been placed outside many of the city gates to regulate the flow of traffic by the 12th century, including Riding Gate, Worth Gate and North Gate. One area of the city beyond the wall, called the baggeberi, may also have been protected by its own earthworks during the middle of the 12th century. Canterbury was divided into wards by the 12th century, although these may potentially have been created as early as the Anglo-Saxon period. These administrative districts, named after the city gates, were termed berthae and were linked to maintenance and manning of the city walls. The wards took the form of segments, spreading out from the centre of the city, incorporating the relevant gate and sometimes the suburbs beyond that had spread outside the walls. By the 1160s Canterbury's wards included Burgate, Northgate and Newingate, with the wards of Riding Gate, Worthgate and West Gate being formed by the end of the century.
  After the 12th century, work on the walls appears to have stopped until the second half of the 14th century. The city walls fell further into disrepair as a result. In some places, over 1 foot (0.30 m) of debris came to cover the remaining stonework of the old Roman walls, while in another case a building was constructed directly over the top of the former defences.
caption: Dane John Mound, site of first castle, seen from the walls
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS OPTICAL CO.,LTD", "Image Model": "C860L,D360L", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "v852u-74", "Image DateTime": "0000:00:00 00:00:00", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "248", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1244", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3415", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/331", "EXIF FNumber": "11", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "176", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "0000:00:00 00:00:00", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "0000:00:00 00:00:00", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired", "EXIF FocalLength": "11/2", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "960", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1280", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed"}