National Weekend: York City Walls Walk

York’s medieval City Walls are a scheduled ancient monument encircling the historic city of York, and comprise two miles of surviving masonry. They are the longest town walls in England. They were built mainly in the 13th century of magnesian limestone and, uniquely in England, were set on earthen ramparts.

There are four main bars, or fortified gateways, two smaller gateways with more modern stonework and one postern (a very small gateway defended by a tower), frequent intermediate towers, and details like windows, arrow-slits and gun ports, sculptures, and masons’ marks. There are also good views of many important buildings from the walls.

One section of the medieval walls is in the Museum Gardens, where you can see the best surviving stretch of the Roman fortress wall and the Roman Multangular Tower with medieval stonework above it. Also in the Museum Gardens are the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey and the precinct walls around two sides of the Abbey. These walls were built at the same time as the City Walls and are the finest surviving example of Abbey walls in the country.

Most of this walk is on the walls and we will need to walk up stone steps to reach these. At some points it is necessary to come off the walls and walk alongside them and across the roads and bridges.