[1] The inner side of the wall taken from the south with the archway and blocked loop towards the west end.

Introduction

The distance between Magdalen Street and St Augustine's Gate was about 365 metres and there were four or five intermediate towers in this long section of the defensive wall.  [see report 7]  A short part of the wall survives at St Augustine's, at the west end of Magpie Road, only 12 metres from the site of St Augustine's Gate though it is hidden behind the houses in St Augustine's Street. It is set back behind the Magpie Printing works in Magpie Road which is built hard against the outer side of the wall, over the line of the outer ditch.

The surviving section of wall is about 18 metres long and is just over 5 metres high. Apart from the west end of the wall, which is mostly refaced in brick, the outer face of the wall is concealed by the printing works and inside the works the face of the wall itself is covered by boarding and was not seen when this survey was undertaken.  Nor was the surviving part of the tower surveyed as it was inaccessible, being blocked off by machinery.

On the inner or south side, the wall incorporates the remains of two arches of the arcade that supported the wall walk and evidence for a further two arches. [1]

At the east end there is part of an intermediate tower that appears to have been semicircular in plan and possibly open on the inner side.  This, the western-most tower between the gates, was strategically placed on an angle of the wall.  Elsewhere, loops set into the re-entrant angle between the outer face of a tower and the outer face of the wall provided sight lines along the wall and the possibility for covering fire down the face of the wall.  Here, similar loops could have provided cover to the side walls of the barbican and bridge before St Augustine's Gate and cover back down the wall to the east of the tower.

The south or inner face of the wall can only be seen from Catherine Wheel Opening and is in a poor state of repair with the bricks of the arches crumbling and flints falling away from the face exposing the loose mortar of the core of the wall.  The east arch has a brick loop set in the back that is now blocked.  The west arch has been rebuilt at the back and there is no longer any evidence for a loop here.