Having now completed the circuit of the walls, as far as it is possible to trace them from maps and the results of excavations, I propose briefly to notice the gates in the outer line of the defensive works. They were (1) the Postern, near the end of the Rope Walk; (2) Chapel Bar; (3) Cowlane Bar, the principal entrance on the north; (4) Swine Bar, at the bottom of Heathcote Street; (5) a gateway at the bottom of Barker Gate; (6) Hollowstone, the chief entrance from the south; (7) the postern at the top of Drury Hill. There may also have been an entry at the end of Broad Street, and mention occurs of a St. John's Bar, which may have been situated here.

Chapel Bar.—The first mention of this gate in the Borough Records is dated January 1st, 1315,1 and occurs occurs in a suit brought by William de Bathley against William Metal, the latter having arrested two carts of wood at the bar called Chapellebarre, and claimed pontage where none was due. On November 29th, 1335, the name Chapellebarre occurs in an enrolment of a grant of land to William de Amyas, "abutting upon the King's highway which leads towards Radford." This fixes the site.

About the year 1370 this gate seems to have gone by the name of the Westbarre, and I am inclined to think that the two names were used concurrently. In a presentment of the Mickletorn Jury of October 8th, 1395,2 John de Whaplington is presented for building a storehouse on the common soil at Chapellebarre, and the inhabitants of the houses bordering the King's highway from Chapellebarre to Organ Lane and Seynt Jamgate are presented for blocking the highway with refuse.3 In the same or the following year, Robert de Chesterfield and Thomas de Arnold, Decennaries of Westbarre, present an affray without blood against John Collingham, but the name Chappelbarre occurs in the presentments of the Mickletorn Jury in 1396. In the Rental of the Common Lands of the Town there is mention of "a comon grond withyn ye walls betux William Bradmer croft and ye forsayd walles and betwix ye Bayles croft and ye towne walles fro ye Posterne to ye Westbarre ward;4 and in another item of the same Roll we find the two names used as indicating the same place. "Two hussus under ye West Barre called ye Chapelle Barre on either syd own xxijd."

Chapel Bar is mentioned in the Chamberlain's accounts in 1499,5 it being there stated that the lower part of the gatehouse was let in tenements; and in the accounts of the same official for 1503-4 there are entries which prove that a considerable amount of work was done in repairing Chapel Bar. From the Rental of the Chamber Estate of the town for 1531, it again appears that the lower part of the gatehouse had been adapted for habitation. "Item, ij houses under the Chappelbarre, ijs."6

When Robert Lovatt was Mayor in 1540-1, the Chapel Bar seems to have been the place at which the trainbands and soldiers were mustered for inspection. In the Chamberlain's accounts for that year there is the following entry7: "Item to Damport, telyor, for pleying of hys drome afore Master Mayre and ye men yat he toke muster of at Chapel Barre .... vjd." Later in the same account there is only the item for the refreshments provided for the occasion that I can trace: "Item, peyd to Grene wyffe for ale yat was dronke at the Toune Hawle when Master Mayre veuyd ye sodyoures at the Chapel Barre . . . . . xiiijd."

The Chamberlain's Rental Rolls for 1548 show Chapel Bar as let in two separate tenements, with gardens.8 The east side was occupied by William Wilson, who in 1549 obtained a lease for twenty-one years at a rent of two shillings per annum. The west side was held by Matthew Hay as a yearly tenant at the same rent.

In 1571, the custom of closing the road through the gateway with a chain seems to have been introduced. The Chamberlain's accounts for that year contain the following entry:—9

"Item payd to Master Cadman for IXll. of eyron and
workmanshipp of the same for the cheyne at Chappyll
Barre xviijd.
"Item payd to Thomas Lockesmeth for stayples, hespes,
and brages to the same vd."

On October 28th, 1570, the Mickletorn Jury presented that the Chapel Bar was in decay for want of mending; but if any repairs were carried out they had no lasting effect, as ten years later we find the Chamberlain paying "for covering the stonewall at the Chapell Bar with turves . . . xviijd."10 The butts for archery practice were situated close to the Chapel Bar, as is shown by a petition of the Bowyers and Fletchers of the town, asking for the repair of the butts, which were in decay, as nothing had been done to them for eight years.11

The Council Minutes of March 30th, 1609, decree that "from this tyme forward for 3 weekes there shall be a watch sett for the toune to looke to the passengers that shall come from any visited place," i.e., from any place where there had been an outbreak of plague, and Samuel Bell was appointed to Chapel Bar. On May 20th of the same year the resolution is minuted: "The watch to contynew, and a colleccion to be made by gathering of the people's weekly bounty."12

On October 23rd, 1612, the Mickletorn Jury record that "We present ye Chappil Barre for that ye stone work is reddy to fall doune, and also we do intreatt yat it maybe taken doune, or elles it will fall, to ye dammidg of ye toune."13 It must be inferred that the repairs were executed, as the gateway continued to stand; and it is next mentioned in April, 1643, when orders were given for the "makinge of twoe gates att Chappell Barr and Cowlane Barr, the Committee to fynde the wood and iron, and the toune to fynde workemen."14 It was not till the year 1743 that Chapel Bar was pulled down.

Having thus noted the chief points in the history of the walls, I must now advance some proof as to the precise locality of the several fortifications of the town. The accompanying plan shows the situation of the Danish Burh in relation to that part of the town now known as St. Mary's Hill, and the facts which lead me to place the burh there are as follows:—

In the Chronicle of Ethelwerd, under the year 868, we are told that "castra metatus est exercitus Paganorum, cujus advectum supra memoravimus, in locum Snotingaham, illicque hyemaverunt." Ethelwerd is precise in his statement that they "measured out their camp," and he is equally precise with regard to the camps at York and Thetford, at both of which places this particular body of Danes are recorded to have gone into winter quarters. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 922 Edward the Elder went from Tamworth to Nottingham and took possession of the burh, and commanded it to be repaired and occupied; two years later he was there again, "and commanded the burh to be built on the south side of the river, over against the other, and the bridge over the Trent, between the two burhs." Florence of Worcester says: "Snottingaham adiit, et in australi ripa fluminis Trentae urbem, contra urbem quae in altera ripa sita erat, aedificavit; et inter utramque firmum pontum fieri mandavit."

If we take into consideration the physical peculiarities of the site, and the fact that the town has undoubtedly spread from east to west, it is practically certain that the burh of the Danes, measured out in 868, was situated on St. Mary's Hill. The fact that the present course of the Trent is three-quarters of a mile from St. Mary's Hill presents some difficulty; but the river has undoubtedly been gradually shifting to the south. There is satisfactory geological and other evidence that at one period it flowed considerably nearer the town than it does at present, and that only a fairly short bridge would have been needed to span the distance between St. Mary's Hill and the opposite bank.

With regard to the question as to how the burh on St. Mary's Hill was defended, Asser, in his Life of Alfred, says, in recording the attack on the Danish Burh in 869, "Christianis frangere murum non suppetebat." Florence of Worcester uses the same words. Thus far, the records are in agreement with my theory that the town was a walled one in the strict sense of the word, and not simply defended by a ditch and palisade. Here geology again comes to our aid. The Hill of St. Mary is entirely composed of sandstone, and in excavating the ditch the Danes proceeded in much the same way as would be done nowadays: they would get the stone out in layers by means of wedges and mallets; and, in the absence of any proof to the contrary, I feel obliged to infer that the material excavated from the ditch was used to construct a wall, or at any rate a breastwork.

If it had been their intention to make a palisade of wood, they would have had to cut a series of holes round the whole site for the reception of the posts. Again, if they had constructed the rampart of earth, the thin covering of gravelly soil would not have been sufficient, even if they had denuded the whole area of the camp to provide the material. Further, they could not have left the surplus material obtained from the ditch lying about within the camp. For obvious reasons, they would not dare to leave it near the spot where it was excavated, and the labour of carting it to a distance would have been enormous. I can, therefore, come to no other conclusion than that they followed their normal practice, and used the material from the ditch to form the rampart; and, as this material was sandstone, I submit that no other theory is tenable than that a wall was constructed at this early period of the town's history, enclosing that part of the town situated on St. Mary's Hill.

1 Borough Records, vol. i, p. 83
2 Ibid., p. 277.
3 Ibid., p. 297.
4  Borough Records, vol. ii, p. 236.
5   Ibid., vol. iii, pp. 67, 69.
6 Ibid., p. 316.
7 Ibid., p. 284. 
8 Ibid., vol. iv, p. 95.
9 Borough Records, vol. iv, p. 145.
10 Ibid., p. 231.
11 Ibid., p. 263.
12 Ibid., p. 291. 
13 Ibid., p. 307.
14 Borough Records, vol. v, p. 208.