| Berwick town walls | |
|---|---|
| Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland | |
 Coxon's Tower | |
  Berwick town walls | |
| Coordinates | 55°45′54″N2°00′17″W / 55.7649°N 2.0048°W |
| Grid reference | grid reference NT998524 |
| Type | Town wall |
Berwick's town walls are a sequence of defensive structures built around the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed in England.
Berwick's town walls were built in the early 14th century under Edward I, following his capture of the city from the Scots. [1] When complete they stretched 2 miles (3.2 km) in length and were 3 feet 4 inches thick and up to 22 feet (6.7 m) high, protected by a number of smaller towers, up to 60 feet (18 m) tall. [2] They were funded by a murage grant in 1313, a tax on particular goods imported into the town. [3] By 1405, however, the walls had fallen into considerable disrepair and were incapable of preventing Henry IV from taking the town with relative ease. [4]
Berwick Castle (an earlier structure) lay just outside the medieval wall to the north-west, and was connected to the town by a bridge leading to a gate in the wall. [5]
An additional, short-lived, fort was built in 1552 to supplement the walls. [6] By 1560, however, it was concluded that it was impractical to upgrade the existing walls and a new set of town fortifications in an Italian style were constructed instead, destroying much of the earlier medieval stonework. [7] Sir Richard Lee served as Chief Surveyor for these works; he came up with an innovative design, combining ditches and walls backed by substantial earthworks (designed to absorb the force of an artillery attack). The new walls were much smaller in length, enclosing only two thirds of the medieval area, allowing them to include more artillery emplacements and five large stone bastions. [8] The 16th century walls included four gates. [9] In the 18th century most of the remaining parts of the medieval walls were steadily lost. [10]
Today the walls are, in the view of archaeologists Oliver Creighton and Robert Higham, "by some measure the best-preserved example of town defences in Britain designed for post-medieval warfare". [11] They are protected as a scheduled monument and a grade I listed building.
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars usually consider a castle to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. This is distinct from a mansion, palace and villa, whose main purpose was exclusively for pleasance and are not primarily fortresses but may be fortified. Use of the term has varied over time and, sometimes, has also been applied to structures such as hill forts and 19th- and 20th-century homes built to resemble castles. Over the Middle Ages, when genuine castles were built, they took on a great many forms with many different features, although some, such as curtain walls, arrowslits, and portcullises, were commonplace.
Castles have played an important military, economic and social role in Great Britain and Ireland since their introduction following the Norman invasion of England in 1066. Although a small number of castles had been built in England in the 1050s, the Normans began to build motte and bailey and ringwork castles in large numbers to control their newly occupied territories in England and the Welsh Marches. During the 12th century the Normans began to build more castles in stone – with characteristic square keep – that played both military and political roles. Royal castles were used to control key towns and the economically important forests, while baronial castles were used by the Norman lords to control their widespread estates. David I invited Anglo-Norman lords into Scotland in the early 12th century to help him colonise and control areas of his kingdom such as Galloway; the new lords brought castle technologies with them and wooden castles began to be established over the south of the kingdom. Following the Norman invasion of Ireland in the 1170s, under Henry II, castles were established there too.
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The siege of Berwick lasted four months in 1333 and resulted in the Scottish-held town of Berwick-upon-Tweed being captured by an English army commanded by King Edward III. The year before, Edward Balliol had seized the Scottish Crown, surreptitiously supported by Edward III. He was shortly thereafter expelled from the kingdom by a popular uprising. Edward III used this as a casus belli and invaded Scotland. The immediate target was the strategically important border town of Berwick.
The sieges of Berwick were the Scottish capture of the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed on 6 November 1355 and their subsequent unsuccessful siege of Berwick Castle, and the English siege and recapture of the town in January 1356. In 1355 the Second War of Scottish Independence had been underway for over 22 years. After a period of quiescence the Scots, encouraged by the French who were fighting the English in the Hundred Years' War, assembled an army on the border. In September a truce was agreed and much of the English army left the border area to join King Edward III's campaign in France.