page_title: Worcester city walls
section_title: 17th–19th centuries
hierarchical_section_title: Worcester city walls / History / 17th–19th centuries
caption_attribution_description: English: 1610 map of Worcester
context_page_description: 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 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.
context_section_description: At the start of the 17th century, Worcester's city walls were still intact, and were recorded in John Speed's famous 1610 map of the city. In 1642 the English Civil War broke out between followers of King Charles I and Parliament. At that time the walls were in a state of disrepair and only part of the wall were defended by a ditch. There were seven gates: Foregate to the north, Saint Marin's and Friar's to the east, and Sidbury was the main southern gate—Frog Gate below Worcester Castle was also on the south side. On the western side (facing the Severn) there was Priory Gate overlooking the ferry and Bridge (or Water) Gate at the end of Newport Street that guarded the Severn bridge entrance to the city. The gates themselves were still opened in the morning and closed each evening, but they were rotten and in a bad state of repair ("so much so that they would hardly shut, and if they were actually closed there was neither lock or bolt to secure them").
  Worcester was occupied by Sir John Byron on 16 September 1642, who was on his way to deliver wagons of silver plate from Oxford to the Charles I at Shrewsbury. Byron realising that he could not hold Worcester with a Parliamentary army under the command of Earl of Essex already approaching city, he had sent a request to the King for additional forces to aid him. The Parliamentarians were aware of Byron's mission and an advanced force under the command of Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes arrived at the Sidbury Gate early on 22 September. What followed was typical of the inexperienced soldiery on both sides. The Parliamentarians were not challenged as they approached the gate and had they but known it they could have pushed it open and been into the town without difficulty. However they struck the gates with an axe which made a hole in it and then fired a musket through the hole. This aroused the lax Royalist guard who called out the Royalist garrison. The Parliamentarian assault team quickly withdrew. They then loosely  invested the north of the city. In doing so they hoped to prevent Byron and his convoy leaving the city, which could be taken by Essex's main force in a day or so.
  Prince Rupert was sent to escort Byron and his convoy onwards from Worcester he attacked Fiennes's Parliamentary force at the Battle of Powick Bridge (23 September 1642), so allowing Byron's wagon-train to leave Worcestershire under Rupert's protection. Essex arrived in front of Worcester the next day with opposition his forces marched in. Essex and his army treated Worcester as a hostile city, officially for letting the Royalists in without a fight, but also due to their frustration at losing the convoy of silver and the Battle of Powick Bridge. Essex remained in Worcester for about a month before leaving with the bulk of his army for Warwickshire and on to the  battle of Edgehill (23 October 1642). With the advance of the Royalist army from Edgehill towards London, most of Worcestershire was retaken by the Royalists, and Thomas Essex, the newly appointed Parliamentary governor, along with his garrison abandoned Worcester. Worcester was reoccupied by the Royalists in November 1642 and Sir William Russell was appointed governor. Worcester would remain in Royalist hands until 1646.
  In the first few months of the First English Civil War although Worcester changed hands three times, only one musket shot was fired, so until the start of the short unsuccessful siege of May 1643 the medieval walls were not subjected to bombardment by an early modern artillery train.
  The war was the first prolonged conflict in Britain to involve the use of artillery and gunpowder. Sieges became a prominent part of the war with over 300 occurring during the period. Worcester was once again a strategically important region in the war, and walled towns and cities like Worcester that could be defended against passing armies were particularly significant from a military perspective. By the 1640s the design of military fortifications had progressed significantly on the continent, owing largely to the Thirty Years War; while older medi
caption: Worcester's walls seen from the south in 1610
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