Oxford city walls

Oxford city walls stand where medieval builders raised them in the 13th century, enclosing the heart of the old town. Built of local stone, the curtain walls stretch for about three kilometres around what was once a 50-hectare area. Over twenty-five hollow bastions were added, each with loopholes for crossbows and merlons on top. The walls followed an unusual concentric plan, possibly inspired by defences seen during the Crusades. Earlier Saxon earthworks had stood on the same line, though these were mostly timber and earth. Archaeologists have found traces of a stone revetment added to the Saxon rampart before the stone walls were built. Historians argue that the walls were partly symbolic, showing the city’s importance to medieval governors. The town’s seal from 1191 already showed a triple-towered walled city with an ox, linking Oxford to its name. Four main gates stood at the cardinal points, where toll roads met at Carfax. Funding came first from wealthy householders who owned ‘mural mansions’, then from tolls on goods entering the city. During the English Civil War the walls were too weak, so earthen ramparts were thrown up outside them. Bernard de Gomme, the king’s engineer, designed these extra defences in 1642. Today the best-preserved stretches belong to New College, which keeps them in good repair. Hollow bastions line parts of the route, their loopholes still visible. The north-east section once had a second outer wall, built for extra safety where the ground offered no natural defence. Sections of the curtain wall run beside Holywell Street and Broad Street, and past the Botanic Garden. Where the walls once joined the city gates, only fragments remain after demolitions in the 16th and 18th centuries. The scheduled monument includes twenty-seven listed structures, standing as a reminder of Oxford’s medieval past.