Burgh Walls

The destruction of.. Borough Walls, overhanging Nightingale Valley, revealed the construction of the walls. It had a triple rampart formed of loose stones, the principal rampart being run together with lime, so as to have a solid mass of concrete in the centre.

This had been produced by mixing the lime-stones with brushwood, which was set on fire, and then when heated, water was poured in, or the smouldering mass left open to the rain, and then fragments of stone cast in, so as to form by degrees a solid mass of concrete, which could not be dug through.

The whole was then banked up with earth and stones, and probably a palisade planted on the summit. All this has now been cleared away and we cannot but regret the loss of so interesting a structure. Hardly any trace of it remains.