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Abstract
Town walls have always played a critical role in shaping the identities and images of the communities they embrace. Today, the surviving fabric of urban defences is a feature of heritage holding great potential as a cultural resource but in management terms one that poses substantial challenges, both practical and philosophical. Town walls can be conceptualised as a ‘dissonant’ form of heritage whose value is contested between different interest groups and whose meanings are not static but can be rewritten. Evidence is gathered from walled towns across Europe, including member towns of the WTFC (Walled Towns Friendship Circle) and inscribed UNESCO World Heritage Sites, to explore the cyclical biographies of town walls in their transformation from civic monuments, through phases of neglect, decay and destruction to their current status as cherished cultural resources. To explore this area of interface between archaeology and tourism studies, the varying attitudes of populations and heritage agencies to walled heritage are reviewed through examination of policies of conservation, preservation, presentation and restoration. Areas of commonality and contrast are thus identified.
Acknowledgements
The research was part‐funded through the European Commission INTERREGiiiC ‘ARCHWAY’ Project (Award no. 3W0083N). The cooperation of a number of member towns of the Walled Towns Friendship Circle is also gratefully acknowledged. Thanks also to Mike Rouillard, who prepared the illustrations.
Notes
[1] http://whc.unesco.org; see also Graham, ‘Heritage as Knowledge’, 1004–5.
[2] Ashworth and Tunbridge, The Tourist‐historic City, 155–63.
[3] Tiesdell et al., Revitalizing Historic Quarters, 7–11.
[4] Department of the Environment, Planning Policy Guidance 16, 6.
[5] Entitled ‘ARCHWAY’ and in receipt of 459,725.00 (Award no. 3W0083N), the project will culminate in a summative conference in 2007 and the publication of five ‘good practice’ guides formulated through research with nine WTFC member towns: Conservation and Interpretation; Transport; Spatial Planning; Tourism; and Cultural Heritage Management. A particular perspective is the ‘access’ to the towns’ monuments, including walls and defensive structures, for the socially and physically disabled, which may also include the socially excluded. Further discussion of social exclusion from and inclusion in the urban heritage is to be found in the International Journal of Heritage Studies special issue of 2004 (vol. 10, no. 1).
[6] Gibbon, writing in the late 18th century, identified 2,300 in Germany alone (see Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 3, 512). For European walled towns in general see Perbellini, The Town Walls of the Middle Ages; and Tracy, City Walls.
[7] Creighton and Higham, Medieval Town Walls, 249–51; Creighton, ‘New Light on Medieval Town Defences in England, Wales and Gascony’.
[8] For 17th‐century urban fortifications in Britain see Porter, Destruction in the English Civil Wars. For town defences and urban planning see Norris and Kain, ‘Military Influence on European Town Design’; Hopkinson, ‘Living in Defended Spaces’; Childs, ‘A Short History of the Military Use of Land in Peacetime’, 86–92.
[9] In the Russian Exclave, formerly East Prussia; see Baedeker, Northern Germany Excluding the Rhineland.
[10] Schofield and Vince, Medieval Towns, 52.
[11] Creighton and Higham, Medieval Town Walls, 223–41.
[12] Ibid., 243.
[13] Thomas, The Walled Towns of Ireland, 196–97.
[14] Johnston, ‘Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban’, 180.
[15] Sournia, ‘Les Fortifications d’Aigues‐Mortes’.
[16] Norris and Kain, ‘Military Influence on European Town Design’, 11; Miles, ‘Strategies for the Convivial City’, 18.
[17] See, for example, Glendinning, ‘The Conservation Movement’.
[18] For Chester see http://www.bwpics.co.uk/chester.html; for Colchester see http://www.camulos.com/virtual/townwall2.htm; for York see http://www.york.gov.uk/walls/mapage.html
[19] Goss, Braun and Hogenberg’s the City Maps of Europe, 90; Benevolo, The European City, 41.
[20] Johnston, ‘Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban’, 176, 180–81.
[21] For the Walled Towns Friendship Circle see http://www.walledtowns.com/; for the Centre Etudes des Bastides see http://etudebastides.ifrance.com/;. Peter Osborne, who founded the WTFC in Tenby, coined this word ‘Timestone’; see also Bruce, ‘Tourism in Walled Towns’; and Bruce et al., ‘PREPARe’.
[22] Tunbridge and Ashworth, Dissonant Heritage, 273.
[23] Graham, ‘Heritage as Knowledge, 1007.
[24] Tunbridge and Ashworth, Dissonant Heritage, 115.
[25] Lennon and Foley, Dark Tourism, 12, 66–67.
[26] Lowenthal, Possessed by the Past.
[27] Shaw and MacLeod, ‘Creativity and Conflict’.
[28] Fowler, The Past in Contemporary Society, 165.
[29] Gruber and Gruber, Jewish Monuments in Slovenia.
[30] Bruce, ‘Piran’.
[31] Mac Giolla Chriost, ‘Northern Ireland’, 130–33.
[32] Kelly, The Sieges of Derry.
[33] Join‐Lambert, Jerusalem, 221; see also Armstrong, A History of Jerusalem.
[34] Abu El‐Haj, Excavating the Land, Creating the Homeland, 295.
[35] UNESCO, Nara Document on Authenticity, Citation1994.
[36] Chapman et al., The London Wall Walk; Brindle, ‘Ancient Monument Casework in London’.
[37] Gowen, Conservation Plan, 32–33.
[38] Cohen‐Hattab, ‘Historical Research and Tourism Analysis’, 290; see also Amiran et al., Urban Geography of Jerusalem, 24.
[39] For Rome see http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/91; for Jerusalem see http://whc.unesco.org/archive/advisory_body_evaluation/148.pdf; for Avila see http://whc.unesco.org/archive/advisory_body_evaluation/348.pdf; for Urbino see http://whc.unesco.org/archive/advisory_body_evaluation/828.pdf
[40] Hounslow and Chroston, ‘Structural Layout of the Suburbs of Roman Butrint, Southern Albania’; Martin, Butrint National Park Development Study; Hodges et al., Byzantine Butrint.
[42] Hagen, ‘The Most German of Towns’.
[43] Glendinning, ‘The Conservation Movement’, 368.
[44] Abu El‐Haj, Excavating the Land, Creating the Homeland, 241–43, 309.
[46] Amiel, De la place forte au monument. It should be noted that it was largely Viollet‐le‐Duc’s successor, Paul Boeswillwald, who was responsible for the removal of houses in Carcassonne’s lists (the space between the inner and outer walls) in the period between le‐Duc’s death in 1879 and completion of the restoration in 1909.
[47] http://whc.unesco.org/archive/repbur85.htm; http://whc.unesco.org/archive/advisory_body_ evaluation/345.pdf
[48] Other than the human cost of removing in excess of 135 houses beneath the wall, these actions dulled the aesthetic impact of the wall by removing indications of its scale and imposition; see Abu El‐Haj, Excavating the Land, Creating the Homeland, 301.
[49] Prittie, Whose Jerusalem?, 114; Klein, The Contested City, 27.
[51] Baalman, The Heritage Industry is Going at Full Blast’, 29–32; Scheltema‐Vriezendorp, ‘De restauratie van de voormalige vesting Naarden 1964–1989’.
[52] Alkhoven, The Changing Image of the City, discusses Heusden and quotes Scholten, ‘Heusden; waar herstel zegeviert over afbraak’, 30.
[53] Taylor, ‘The Walls of Conwy’, 6–7; Taylor, ‘The Town and Castle of Conwy’; see also Austin, ‘Devolution, Castles and Welsh Identity’. The demolished structures included two electrical substations, a coal order office and a mortuary.
[54] Hywel, ‘Castles and Contradictions’, 184.
[55] Beresford, New Towns of the Middle Ages, 35–51.
[56] UNESCO new designations, June 2005; see http://whc.unesco.org
[57] Slyomovics, The Walled Arab City in Literature, Architecture and History, 4.
[58] See, for example, Quebec: Evans, ‘Living in a World Heritage City’, 121.