York City Walls
The city walls of York are the most complete surviving medieval city walls in England, a nearly continuous circuit of approximately three kilometres that encloses the historic centre of the city and can be walked almost in its entirety on the raised wall walk. The walls incorporate elements spanning nearly two thousand years, from the Roman fortress walls of Eboracum through the Viking and Norman periods to the major reconstruction of the medieval circuit in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries that created the walls visible today. Walking the complete circuit provides an unparalleled perspective on the Roman origins of York, the medieval development of the city and the architecture of every subsequent period visible within and beyond the wall.
York was established as Eboracum, the legionary fortress of the Ninth and then Sixth Legions, in 71 AD, and the Roman walls formed the perimeter of a fortress covering approximately fifty acres on the north bank of the Ouse. The characteristic playing card shape of the Roman fortress is still discernible in the street pattern of the city centre, and large sections of the original Roman wall masonry are preserved in the lower courses of the medieval circuit, most visibly at the Multangular Tower in the Museum Gardens where the Roman polygonal angle tower stands to considerable height.
The four principal gateways, known as bars, provide the most impressive architectural features of the wall circuit. Micklegate Bar, the most important gate as the principal entry from the south, bears the arms of the city on its outer face and was traditionally where the heads of executed traitors were displayed, including Richard Duke of York's head in 1461. Bootham Bar, Monk Bar and Walmgate Bar each have their own character and historical associations.
The views from the wall walk over the city, the minster and the surrounding roofscape of York are unmatched by any other perspective on this exceptional historic city.