The Gatehouse website record for Devizes Town Defences

In the civil parish of Devizes. In the historic county of Wiltshire (Modern Authority of Wiltshire, 1974 county of Wiltshire).

Site of Devizes town ditch, which consisted originally of a rampart with outer ditch, the latter having been filled in 1538. Three gates are known to have existed. None of these features are extant. The defences formed two circuits, the position of which is still clear in town layout.
Two records of sections through the town defences survive. Cunnington in 1945-7 measured the ditch at the gasworks on the northern side at 25feet wide by 7 ft deep (7.6m x 2.1m). In 1974 the Wiltshire Archaeological Society recorded an excavated section south of Hare and Hounds Street (Haslam 1980). Here the ditch had a wide V-shaped profile with a rounded base, was at least 3.1m deep and over 7m wide at the top. Only slight traces of the inner rampart remained beneath the gardens inside the ditch. Neither the construction nor the infilling of the ditch is dated, although it had clearly occurred by the early 18th century, and whilst Haslam postulates a 16th or 17th century date, with a Civil War recut, there is little positive evidence for this. (Urban Survey Devizes)

The Ordnance Survey Map Grid Reference is SU00096151

Sources of information, references and further reading

This site's English Heritage (PastScape) Defra or Monument number is 216242
This site's County Historic Environment Record (formerly Sites and Monuments Record) number is SU06SW450 'grey' literature, such as watching brief reports, held by H.E.R.s is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded in this website.

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The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

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