Civil War gun battery 50m south west of St Peters and St Paul's Church

Reasons for Designation

The battles and sieges of the English Civil War (1642-52) between King and Parliament were the last major active military campaigns to be undertaken on English soil and have left their mark on the English landscape in a variety of ways. Fieldworks are earthworks which were raised during the military campaigns to provide temporary protection for infantry or to act as gun emplacements. The earthworks, which may have been reinforced with revetting and palisades, consisted of banks and ditches and varied in complexity from simple breastworks to complex systems of banks and interconnecting trenches. They can be recognised today as surviving earthworks or as crop or soil marks on aerial photographs. They are recorded widely throughout England, with concentrations in the main areas of campaigning, and have been recognised to be unique in representing the only evidence on the ground of military campaigns fought in England since the introduction of guns. Newark was a key garrison held by the Royalists from the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 until it surrendered on the orders of the King in 1646. The town was surrounded by a series of offensive and defensive fieldworks, many of which survive to the present day. They are the most impressive surviving collection of such works in England; not only do extensive remains survive, but the whole system is recorded on two nearly contemporary plans, one by a Royalist engineer, the other by a Parliamentarian. They thus provide a unique opportunity for the study of the field engineering of the Civil War. All surviving examples of the Newark siegeworks are identified to be nationally important.

The remains of the gun battery 50m south west of St Peter and St Paul's Church survive particularly well as a series of substantial earthworks and will retain significant archaeological potential in the form of buried deposits. As a result of both the survival of historical documentation and subsequent archaeological finds, the battery will contribute particularly to understanding the sieges of Newark and the role of the several outpost garrisons surrounding the town.

Details

The monument includes the remains of a Civil War gun battery, located 50m south west of St Peter and St Paul's Church, Shelford, and consists of earthworks defining a horseshoe-shaped bank up to 0.6m in height and 5m in width. The bank encloses an area approximately 8m by 10m and faces westwards down Stoke Ferry Lane. Contemporary documentary sources record the existence of a Royalist garrison at Shelford manor between early 1642 and November 1645 when it was stormed by Parliamentarian forces. During the attack on Shelford village itself a contemporary document records that the Parliamentarians were fired upon by snipers hidden in the church tower. A chance find of a human burial in the adjacent vicarage garden with apparent sword cuts to the head has been interpreted as belonging to this assault. The location of the monument on a rise overlooking a tactically important crossing over the Trent, in addition to the documentary and archaeological evidence for Civil War activity in the vicinity, is interpreted as suggesting that the monument was a Royalist defensive work designed to protect the western approaches to Shelford.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 5 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

30215

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
RCHME, , Newark on Trent - The Civil War Siegeworks, (1964)
Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, (1906)

Other
Baddeley, V., Nottinghamshire Sites and Monuments Record: PRN 05463, (1987)

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