Defending the dreaming spires: Civil War ramparts discovered in Oxford

Between 2015 and 2020, Oxford Archaeology and MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) investigated, prior to development, parts of a Civil War rampart buried below an access yard to Savile House at New College School in Oxford. The city’s defences were established in 1642, when Charles I made the town his de-facto capital, and continued to be added to until 1646, when the Royalist garrison surrendered to Parliamentarian forces. Where truncated Civil War ramparts have been found elsewhere in Oxford, they are made up of tips of gravel and soil. Here, though, the dumps of gravel (which might represent a refortification of an earlier line slighted by Parliamentarian troops) covered a bank m