The city Walls, of which the present remains date from the reign of Edward III., were broad, crenellated walls of limestone, on a high mound which was protected without by a parallel deep moat.  At the north, east, south, and west corners there were massive bastions, and between these, at short intervals, smaller towers.  Besides being crenellated the raised front of the wall itself was often pierced with slits shaped for the use of long or cross-bows.  The bowmen were very well protected by these skilful arrangements.  Some of these slits, shaped like crosses, were of exquisite design architecturally.

The continuity of these mural fortifications was broken only where swamps and the rivers made them unnecessary and where roads passed through them.  The four principal entrances along the main high-roads were defended by the four Bars, or fortified gateways.  These, with their Barbicans, three of which were so needlessly and callously destroyed in the last century, were magnificent examples of noble permanent military architecture.  The outer facade of Monk Bar to-day, spoiled as it is, expresses a noble strength.  There was formerly only the single way, both for ingress and egress.[6] The Bar was supported on each side by the mound and wall, which latter led right into the Bar and so to the corresponding wall on the other side.  Each of these entrances to the city was protected by barbican, portcullis, and gate.  Each evening the Bars were closed and the city shut in for the night.  Defenders used a Bar as a watch-tower or a fort.  They could walk along the high crenellated walls of the Barbican and shoot thence, and stop the way by lowering the portcullis.[7]

Near the Castle there were the Castle mills, where the machinery was driven by water-power.

Outside the walls there were strays, or common lands.  Some of the land immediately around the city was cultivated or used as pasture.  There were, besides dwellings, several churches and hospitals, just outside the city.  Beyond this suburban area was the forest.

The most notable of the Religious Buildings is the Minster, which was practically completed in the fifteenth century, when the work of erecting the three towers was finished.  The architectural splendour of this mighty church must have appealed very strongly to the people of the fifteenth century, for did they not see the great work that had gone on for centuries at last brought to this glorious conclusion?  It rose up in the midst of the city, always visible from near and far.  The inside was even more magnificent than the exterior.  The fittings and furniture were of the richest.  The light mellow tone of the white stonework was enhanced by the fleeting visions of colour that spread across from the sunlit stained-glass windows, which still, in spite of time and restoration, add enormously to the beauty of the interior.

The Minster stood within its Close, one of the four gateways of which, College Street Arch, remains.  This part of the city around the Minster was enclosed because it was under the jurisdiction of the Liberty of St. Peter.