ULAS
University of Leicester Archaeological Services

Annual Report 2001

Civil War Siege - Excavations at Mill Lane

Evaluation by trial trenching at a site on the south side of Mill Lane, Leicester for De Montfort University, located, amongst other things, a massive north-east to south-west aligned ditch. Further work confirmed that this formed part of Leicester’s town defences at the time of the English Civil War in the mid 17th century. By this date the earlier medieval town defences had all but disappeared, the walls robbed for building stone and the ditches infilled to allow new building as the town expanded beyond its early core.

A new defensive circuit of earthen banks and ditches was therefore constructed, enclosing most of the prosperous north and east suburbs but not the poorer suburb to the south, which was apparently considered expendable. Houses on the line of, or lying outside the new defences, were demolished, and the Records of the Borough of Leicester record payments made for taking down houses ‘beyond the south gate’ in 1643-44. Incorporated into the defensive line was the precinct wall of the Newarke (a corruption of ‘New Work’). This substantial stone-built wall had originally enclosed an ecclesiastical college founded in the early fourteenth century, but following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the area had become an exclusive residential suburb which was home to many of Leicester’s wealthiest citizens.

Contemporary documentary accounts record that the Newarke was not adequately fortified prior to the Royalist assault on Friday 30th May 1645, and it is probably no coincidence, therefore, that when this attack came, it was from the south. The southern wall of the Newarke precinct, on the north side of Mill Lane - opposite the excavation site, bore the brunt of this attack, from a battery of cannon stationed somewhere in the vicinity of the present day Leicester Royal Infirmary, and was soon breached. After the town’s capture by the Royalists, the breach was repaired and work on strengthening the defences around the Newarke was begun. It is unclear, however, how much was done prior to the Parliamentarian recapture of the town on June 16th, just over a fortnight later, following their decisive victory at Naseby. The documentary evidence for the inadequacy of the defences around the Newarke, makes it is possible to suggest, with some degree of confidence, that the Mill Lane ditch dates to the period after the first siege. Less clear, however, is whether this was a Royalist work completed before June 16th, or a later Parliamentarian defence. The least truncated section of the ditch permits some appreciation of the original scale of this earthwork. With an equivalent bank on the north-west side, the difference in height between base of ditch and top of bank would have been somewhere in the region of 6.5m. Given the time it would have taken to construct an earthwork of this scale, it may be tentatively suggested that it was probably not completed until after the town’s recapture by Parliamentarian forces.

Few finds were recovered from the ditch, which would have been regularly cleaned out when in use, and was quickly backfilled following the end of the conflict. A single lead musket ball was found embedded in the north-west side of the ditch, however. Weighing 0.8 ounces (20 shot to the pound), this is smaller than the standard sized musket shot (12 to the pound) in use at the time. Problems with the standardisation of military ordnance were not uncommon, however, and 20 to the pound shot has been found in quantity at other Civil War period sites. A fragment of a possible lead cannon ball was also found. This was similar in size to iron cannonballs of the period previously found in the area, lead cannonballs were certainly used at the siege of Leicester and one was found embedded in the wall of Trinity Hospital, in the Newarke, in 1901. The incomplete and distorted shape of the Mill Lane find may represent impact damage.

This site has provided the rare opportunity for archaeological evidence to be linked to well documented and dated events. Examination of the information from this and other sites in the vicinity where Civil War period remains have been found, together with the evidence from contemporary sources, should permit a reconstruction of the form and development of the Civil War defences around the south of the town.

We would like to thank De Montfort University for their help and co-operation with this project.