Pembroke Town Walls

Pembroke town walls
Pembroke, Pembrokeshire

The Gazebo Tower before the recent restoration
Pembroke town walls
Coordinates grid reference SM9859501400
Type Town wall
Site information
Open to
the public		 Yes
Site history
Materials Rubble stone
Listed Building – Grade II*

Pembroke's town walls are a Grade II*-listed medieval defensive structure around the town of Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales. They were probably built beginning in the late 13th century by the Earls of Pembroke, although it is uncertain when they were finished. Most of the walls have not survived, but there are visible sections and two bastions exist, one with a restored late 18th-century gazebo atop it.

History

The construction of the town walls by William de Valence, 1st Earl of Pembroke, probably began after the outer ward of Pembroke Castle was completed about 1280 as they tie into the castle's wall. They probably replaced a timber palisade and/or earthen rampart that protected the town, most likely at the narrowest point of the peninsula upon which the town is built. Construction was likely continued by his son Aymer (1296–1324), but the walls may not have been completed as there is a 1377 commission that the constable of the castle was charged to 'survey, repair, and fortify the castle and town of Pembroke'.[1]

A century later, money was allocated for 'making a stone wall on the south side of the town of Pembroke' in 1479–80, but this may be interpreted as a repair or rebuild of the existing wall, completion of a missing section of wall or the strengthening of the wall, as was done with the Tenby Town Walls at about the same time by Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford.[2]

Description

The town walls, built of limestone rubble, had three gates, of which only fragments survive of the West Gate.[3] The surviving portion of the walls is on the south side of town and extends some 225 metres (246 yd) from No. 5 Common Road to Rock Terrace. Much of the town wall has been incorporated or rebuilt into more recent structures.[4]

Notes

  1. ↑ Pembroke Design and Cambria Archaeology, pp. 11–15
  2. ↑ Pembroke Design and Cambria Archaeology, pp. 15–16
  3. ↑ Edwards, p. 19
  4. ↑ "Pembroke Town Walls". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 14 April 2016.

Bibliography

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