Dunwich Town Defences
Has been described as a Possible Urban Defence
There are cropmark/slight earthwork remains
| Name | Dunwich Town Defences |
| Alternative Names | Pales Dyke |
| Historic Country | Suffolk |
| Modern Authority | Suffolk |
| 1974 Authority | Suffolk |
| Civil Parish | Dunwich |
C12 and C13 defences of Earthen banks. Scant traces of C13 work. Single grant of murage in 1253 but this may have been for sea or flood defences rather than fortification. Last remnant exists, rest destroyed by coastal erosion.
The surviving stretch of Pales Dyke was surveyed by the RCHME's Cambridge Office in October 1993, following a request from Suffolk County Council. The ditch is up to 14m wide and between 0.5 and 1m deep. The name Pales Dyke is recorded as early as 1573, supposedly deriving from the former existence of a pale or timber palisade. In 1589 Radulp Agas described Pales Dyke as an 'auncient bancke', part of which had been overlain by the precinct wall of Greyfriars (TM 47 SE 3). Agas' map marks the course of the bank and the location of Middle Gate. The date of the Pales Dyke is unknown, since the excavations of 1970 were unable to provide conclusive evidence (West, 1971). The defences must have existed in 1253, when the Calender of Close Rolls refers to a building near the South Gate of Dunwich, and probably in 1173 when the town survived a siege by the Earl of Leicester. The Dyke had become obsolete by 1290 when the Franciscans demolished part of the existing circuit. Either the useful life of the Pales Dyke was short or it may be earlier than has hitherto been suggested, little is known of Saxon Dunwich. (PastScape–ref. RCHME: Dunwich Greyfriars Survey)
This site is a scheduled monument protected by law
Not Listed
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s)
County Historic Environment Record
| OS Map Grid Reference | TM478702 |
| Latitude | 52.2750205993652 |
| Longitude | 1.63165998458862 |
| Eastings | 647850 |
| Northings | 270240 |
