More information : SP33927904. An exploratory trench, 11.1m x 2.5m was cut across the last section of city wall to be built,between 1450 and 1539. The wall was rough faced, indicating that only those features originally built below the ground level survive. It is of sandstone and clay construction. The wall was apparently built on a marl terrace. The ditch was not cut through bedrock in the normal way, but rather formed by raising a bank against the town wall, and an outer bank, thus forming the ditch by the removal of marl from between the two banks. There may also have been a remnant outer bank on a flood-plain soil which the later bank was thrown up on. The reason for the unconventional method of ditch construction may be that the ditch was flooded in times of crisis, as it is close to th R. Sherbourne. Finds included large quantities of animal bone and leather, and also wire from the wire industry.(1) (Forms part of SP37NW48, Coventry city walls.) |