Lewes Town Wall, section called The Green Wall

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1002249
Date first listed:: 23-Jan-1973

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1002249
Date first listed:: 23-Jan-1973

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: East Sussex
District:: Lewes (District Authority)
Parish:: Lewes
National Park:: SOUTH DOWNS
National Grid Reference:: TQ 41744 10389

Summary

A length of the medieval town wall of Lewes, 54m north of Eastgate Baptist Church.

Reasons for Designation

Between the Roman and post-medieval periods a large number of English Towns were provided with defences. Construction of these reached its peak in around 1300 although many were then maintained for many centuries thereafter. The defences could take the form of earthen banks, ditches or masonry walls or a combination of all three. They were constructed to mark the limits of the town or its intended size and could be used to defend the town in times of trouble. Their symbolic role in marking out the settlement and its importance was also significant and thus many defensive circuits included well built and visually impressive water-filled moats, walls and gateways. In the medieval period the development of towns was closely associated with major landowners and many towns were deliberately established next to major castles so that their lordly owners could influence and gain from the important market, trade and other functions of the developing urban centres. The length of the medieval town wall of Lewes, 54m north of Eastgate Baptist Church survives well and will retain evidence of its construction. As a monument accessible to the public, the town wall forms an important educational and recreational resource.

History

See Details.

Details

This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 4 September 2014. The record has been generated from an "old county number" (OCN) scheduling record. These are monuments that were not reviewed under the Monuments Protection Programme and are some of our oldest designation records.

The monument includes a length of the medieval town wall of Lewes known as the ‘Green Wall’. It is situated east of Waterloo Place on the north-east side of Lewes old town and carries a footpath. It survives as upstanding stone remains and below-ground archaeological remains. The upstanding wall is constructed of flint on top of an earthen bank and runs for a distance of about 32m.

The medieval town wall of Lewes was constructed in about 1267 and there was a further grant for murage, tax levied for the upkeep of the wall, in 1334. The wall is shown on Sussex OS maps (1:2500) of 1875, 1899, 1910 and 1932 when it ran considerably further northwards.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: ES 380
Legacy System:: RSM - OCN

Sources

Other
NMR TQ41SW2. PastScape 406490.,

Legal

This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.