The “long wall” after which Long Wall Street is named is not as might be expected at first glance the very visible fifteenth-century wall of Magdalen College that today dominates the entire east side of the street, but the twelfth-century City Wall that is hidden at the bottom of the gardens of the houses on the west side.
The inside of this long wall is almost intact and is shown below viewed from New College gardens:
This wall became redundant as a fortification in the seventeenth century, and houses were built along the west side of Long Wall Street.
This ancient wall still marks the boundary between the back gardens of the houses on the west side of Long Wall Street and New College to the north and St Edmund Hall to the south.