The fortified villages, with their connecting lanes and roads, blocked most of the approaches to Newark, but were themselves too far out and on too wide a circumference to blockade the town effectively. The besiegers accordingly constructed forts and two lines of circumvallation nearer to the town to meet sorties and to prevent communication between Newarkers and the open country. Full advantage was taken of natural features. The first line, over 6 miles in length, began on the river Trent at Colonel Gray’s Sconce opposite Crankley Point; thence, after taking advantage of a lake and an escarpment near the sconce, it continued for about 4 miles, first SE and then S, across the townward slope of Beacon Hill, to reach the Middle Beck at Bow Bridge. From this point first the beck and then the river Devon were used, as far as a bend in the Devon almost due E of Farndon, whence a further line of earthworks 0.5 miles long, linked up with the defences of that village and thus the Trent; the N side of the river was held by the Scots. The line was furthest from Newark at Bow bridge, over 0.75 miles away. The circuit was weakest where the besiegers trusted to the Middle Beck and Devon; this sector was inconvenient of access and, though it lay some way from the fortified villages, the only works built here were three redoubts at Hawton. The two lines were linked by the ‘approches and workes made in Ballderton lane from the first line’ , at the NW end of which lay Colonel Rossiter’s battery, a large rectangular work with three cannon. Both lines of circumvallation were strengthened at intervals by ‘redouts’ or ‘bulwarkes’. (1)
The line of circumvallation proposed by RCHME runs SE from Col. Gray's Sconce to a pond, resuming its course on the other side some 150yds to the N, where it includes Redoubt 11b, en route to Moll's Hornwork. According to a contemporary plan (Clampe), the earthworks ran straight to Moll's Hornwork, with no diversion at the pond. The results of the present excavation tend to confirm the C17 plan and suggest the circumvallation should be sought in a straight projection east of the pond, that is, under the Winthorpe Road estate and the fields to the SE. (2)

Data Held (Document). SNT2647.

(1), Arch office

<1> RCHM, 1964, Newark on Trent - The Civil War Siegeworks, pp 36-7 (Published document). SNT1176.

<2> TPAT, 1988, Excavation on the Supposed Site of Civil War Redoubt 11B, Newark-on-Trent (Unpublished document). SNT2157.