The Town Walls

The Medieval Wall

Repairs to Sandwich’s town walls were a drain on the town’s authorities and the development of the walls seems to have been piecemeal. They were built over a long time, between the 13th and the 15th centuries. 

Once completed, the walls enclosed an area of about 31.5 hectares (78 acres). Along the river front, the section between Canterbury Gate in the west and Sandown Gate in the east was probably built in the 15th century. The eastern wall stops near St Mary’s Church and the western wall stops at the Barbican, with no evidence of a wall in between. Stout-walled houses and store buildings that fronted onto the river may have taken its place. 

Town Gates

Fragments of the wall still survive, together with two defended gateways (the Barbican and Fisher Gate) but much has been lost. Archaeological excavations have revealed traces of the Canterbury Gate and Sandown Gate. The Bulwark once stood at the north-east corner of the defended circuit, protecting the river approach to the town. This was a massive earth and timber artillery fortification that was built in 1451. No trace of it now survives but it must have been sited in the grounds of ‘The Salutation’, a fine mansion designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1911-12. Away from the river, on the landward side, the town’s defences consisted of a single clay rampart. 

These were fronted by a wet ditch or moat known as ‘The Town Ditch’. There was probably a wooden palisade (a fence made of pales or stakes) or a thick hedge on top of the bank that would have created a significant barrier. The ramparts were laid out in four straight sections and in total were around 1300 metres (0.8 miles) long. They seem to have been built some distance away from the inhabited area of the town. The ramparts extended from Sandown Gate in the east, southwards past the sites of New Gate and Woodnesborough Gate, to the now demolished Canterbury Gate in the west. Most of their circuit still survives, although they are now reduced in height, and levelled in several places. Today, the various sections of the ramparts are known as Mill Wall, the Ropewalk and the Butts. 

The Mill Wall

The Mill Wall rampart was built across a low ridge of raised ground from the eastern side of the town at the River Stour, to the low-lying marshes in the south-west. This was the most likely direction that an attacking land army would approach the town and so the defences here were more substantial. Even today, the size of the rampart is impressive. It varies between 4.7-7 metres high (16-23 feet) from the top of the bank to the base of the now dry ditch. The name commemorates two or possibly three post-medieval windmills that used to stand here. 

The Bulwark 

The Bulwark was built in 1451 and, after 1469, a two-storey building was constructed behind the rampart. This had a small arms store on the upper floor with an arsenal beneath and was probably connected to the rampart by a bridge. The Bulwark was more or less square in shape and in 1483 the entrance was defended by a gun called the ‘murderer’. 

Sandwich Castle 

Sandwich Castle once stood beyond Mill Wall, outside of the town’s defences. It overlooked the river and guarded the eastern approaches to the town. The earliest documentary reference to the castle is in 1266, which suggests that the castle was constructed before Mill Wall. In 1303, the ‘King’s tower’ here underwent significant repairs. There has been some archaeological excavation on the site but no trace of the castle is visible today 

The Ropewalk and the Butts 

The ramparts of the Ropewalk and the Butts are less impressive than Mill Wall, but they no doubt provided an effective defence for this side of the town. They were built across the low-lying marshland, and the wet ditch in front of them may have been for land drainage as much as defence. The works maintained their defensive potential, however, and during the Second World War sections of the ditch were dredged and deepened as an anti-tank obstacle in the event of a German invasion