Details

The monument includes the remains of a Civil War gun battery, located 50m
south west of St Peter and St Paul's Church, Shelford, and consists of
earthworks defining a horseshoe-shaped bank up to 0.6m in height and 5m in
width. The bank encloses an area approximately 8m by 10m and faces westwards
down Stoke Ferry Lane.
Contemporary documentary sources record the existence of a Royalist garrison
at Shelford manor between early 1642 and November 1645 when it was stormed by
Parliamentarian forces. During the attack on Shelford village itself a
contemporary document records that the Parliamentarians were fired upon by
snipers hidden in the church tower. A chance find of a human burial in the
adjacent vicarage garden with apparent sword cuts to the head has been
interpreted as belonging to this assault. The location of the monument on a
rise overlooking a tactically important crossing over the Trent, in addition
to the documentary and archaeological evidence for Civil War activity in the
vicinity, is interpreted as suggesting that the monument was a Royalist
defensive work designed to protect the western approaches to Shelford.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
It includes a 5 metre boundary around the archaeological features,
considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

The battles and sieges of the English Civil War (1642-52) between King and
Parliament were the last major active military campaigns to be undertaken on
English soil and have left their mark on the English landscape in a variety of
ways. Fieldworks are earthworks which were raised during the military
campaigns to provide temporary protection for infantry or to act as gun
emplacements. The earthworks, which may have been reinforced with revetting
and palisades, consisted of banks and ditches and varied in complexity from
simple breastworks to complex systems of banks and interconnecting trenches.
They can be recognised today as surviving earthworks or as crop or soil marks
on aerial photographs. They are recorded widely throughout England, with
concentrations in the main areas of campaigning, and have been recognised to
be unique in representing the only evidence on the ground of military
campaigns fought in England since the introduction of guns.
Newark was a key garrison held by the Royalists from the outbreak of the Civil
War in 1642 until it surrendered on the orders of the King in 1646. The town
was surrounded by a series of offensive and defensive fieldworks, many of
which survive to the present day. They are the most impressive surviving
collection of such works in England; not only do extensive remains survive,
but the whole system is recorded on two nearly contemporary plans, one by a
Royalist engineer, the other by a Parliamentarian. They thus provide a unique
opportunity for the study of the field engineering of the Civil War. All
surviving examples of the Newark siegeworks are identified to be nationally
important.

The remains of the gun battery 50m south west of St Peter and St Paul's
Church survive particularly well as a series of substantial earthworks and
will retain significant archaeological potential in the form of buried
deposits. As a result of both the survival of historical documentation and
subsequent archaeological finds, the battery will contribute particularly to
understanding the sieges of Newark and the role of the several outpost
garrisons surrounding the town.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, (1906)
RCHME, , Newark on Trent - The Civil War Siegeworks, (1964)
Other
Baddeley, V., Nottinghamshire Sites and Monuments Record: PRN 05463, (1987)

Source: Historic England