few of these gardens that were sheltered by the mediæval stone walls of the town survived into modern times, but the walls have now disappeared, and only a few scattered fragments remain. Portions of the East Wall may perhaps yet be seen between East Bond Street and Churchgate; and near Cumberland Street, out of which runs a "City Wall Street," may be traced some relics of the old North Wall.
The ditches outside the town Walls were not entirely filled up for some centuries. One day in 1714 or 1715, a certain Mrs. Dickman, when walking home from St. Margaret's Church along Churchgate, was unexpectedly rescued from oblivion by a sudden storm of wind, which carried her off her feet, and "blew her into the Town Ditch." This ditch remained till the middle of the 18th century.
Most of the other walls in the town were made of mud. When saltpetre was urgently required in the reign of Queen Elizabeth for the manufacture of gunpowder, it was proposed that all the mud walls within the borough should be broken down in order that supplies might be obtained. The Mayor then stated that, if this proposal were carried out, the damage done to the town would amount to "1,000 marks or thereabouts," that is to say, between £650 and £700 of that day's money, and many thousands of pounds of ours. There must therefore have been a very considerable number of mud walls. Only a few of them lasted into our own times, which old inhabitants will remember, such as the remnants which lingered on the boundary of the old shooting butts in Butt Close Lane, and a wall which was standing within recent memory in Newarke Street.
The four Gates, or Gatehouses, of the town were kept in better repair than the walls, and they remained standing until the year 1774. They were then all pulled down to meet modern requirements, having been sold by auction at the Three Crowns Hotel, in four lots, as building material. But the width of the entrances was not altered for some years. Throsby complained that only "the humble roofs of the Gates were sold in 1774, being considered as obstacles to the passage of a lofty
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