[1] Magpie Road looking west. The road is on the line of the lane outside the ditch. The houses on the left were built over the line of the ditch and the wall was just behind the houses.

Introduction

The defensive wall between Magdalen Gate and St Augustine's Gate extended over a distance of about 365 metres and, apart from at the west end, it ran almost due east west. [1] The modern Magpie Road runs on the line of the lane outside the wall and the houses now on the south side of Magpie Road were built over the infilled ditch.  The ditch was between 17 and 20 metres wide but there is no evidence from any of the excavations for its depth.  The ditch drained to the east, to the river south of Pockthorpe Gate.  The modern road level is presumably higher than the medieval levels but still reflects this slope.  At St Augustine's the site of the gate is just over 10 metres above sea level, at the Magpie public house the road is 7.76 metres above sea level and at Magdalen Gate the road is at 6 metres.

Short lengths of wall survive at each end of Magpie Road.  About 17 metres of wall is still standing close to the site of Magdalen Gate and at the west end, 15 metres from the site of the St Augustine's Gate, is a run of wall about 18 metres long which incorporates part of an intermediate tower. [see Report 6 & Report 8.] Both these sections retain arcading on the south or city side of the wall supporting the wall walk and outer parapet and it is probable that the whole of this section of wall had arches on the south side.

The 14th-century Customs Book records that there were 153 battlements on the wall between St Augustine's Gate and St Martin's Gate.  [Fitch ix]

Documentary evidence suggests that there were four or five intermediate towers between the two gates.  These appear from map evidence to have been either semicircular in plan or circular and were between 70 and 80 metres apart.  The east tower was less than 40 metres from Magdalen Gate and the west tower just 30 metres from St Augustine's Gate.  The position of the two or three middle towers cannot be placed precisely. [Map 07-01]