Nottingham 
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These formerly encompassed the town, but are now scarcely to be traced, though Leland says, "The town hath been meetly welle walled with stone, and hath had dyvers gates; much of the walle is now downe, and the gates, saving two or three". This wall was built by Edward the Elder, about 910. After building the castle, William Peverel made considerable additions to the wall and gates, and in 1259 Henry III commanded "the burgesses, without delay, to make a postern in the wall near the castle, towards Lenton". This postern is supposed to have stood where the reservoir now is, behind the infirmary, and Deeming says, a bridge in front of it crossed the town ditch, at the place now called Boston Bridge, being a corruption of Postern Bridge. In Deering's time, the ditch extending to Chapel Bar was converted into kitchen gardens, and called Butt Dyke, from some butts where the inhabitants used to practise archery, being adjoining. About the year 1800, Butt Dyke, now the site of Park Row, was let as building land by the Corporation on perpetual leases. In digging the foundation of the houses, several fragments of the old wall were discovered.
The town wall passed from the north-west corner of the castle wall, along the site of Park Row to Chapel Bar, and thence across Parliament Street, through Roper's Close and Pannier's Close to St John's Street, Coalpit Lane, Cartergate, Fishergate, Hollowstone, Short Hill, and the High, Middle and Low Pavement, to the end of Listergate, whence it passed up the south side of Castlegate, and below St Nicholas' Churchyard to the Brewhouse Yard, where it joined the Castle Rock. In consequence of part of this wall being destroyed in the wars between King Stephen and Empress Matilda, Henry II repaired it by erecting a wall, which extended from Chapel Bar, down Parliament Street to Coalpit Lane. In 1740, one of the old posterns was standing at the top of Drury Hill, facing Bridlesmith Gate. A little above this is Postern Place, in which Blackner says, there is standing a part of the old town wall, 102 inches in height, thirty-eight inches thick, and six yards in length; with the arch of a sally-port, ninety-two inches in height and sixty-two in width. Tradition says, there were posterns at the top of Listergate and Clumber Street, but the principal entrance hates were those at Chapel Bar and Hollowstone.
now much altered, this is the remains of an ancient entrance into the town. About one hundred years ago it was a very narrow passage, having been secured by a portcullis. AEach side of the gateway was formed of living stone, and above it, on the western side, was a large cavity cut in the rock, capable of holding twenty men, with a fire-place and benches, evidently designed for a guard-house, and having a staircase cut from the top of the rock to communicate with the sentinels. This cavity was widened by the Corporation in 1740, and by the commissioners of the Flood Road in 1800, when the road from thence was raised so much that the chambers in some of the old houses in Bridge Street were converted into first floors. The perpendicular rock on each side of the deep-cut road, called Hollow-stone, is much of it now hid behind many good houses which have been erected against it.
This was a strong gateway tower, having on each side an arched room of a pentagonal figure, one of which was used as the guard-house, and the other as a chapel. The top of the arch was well earthed and cultivated as a pleasure ground, in which grew a large sycamore tree. The whole was taken down in 1743 and, in 1831, the street was widened by taking down the houses on the south side, making this previously contracted entrance into the Market Place, from the Derby Road, a spacious street of good houses and shops. Long before the gate was taken down, the old chapel was converted into a brewhouse, to an inn which stood at the corner. The mash-tubs being placed on the altars caused a facetious layman to write the following epigram:-
White's Directory of Nottinghamshire 1853
[Last updated 19 June 1997 - Clive Henly]
© Copyright C.R.G. Henly 1997