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Summary

Stretch of City Wall between Tower 13 (Tofts Tower) and Tower 14.
This stretch of Wall has been rebuilt many times. Many of the most dramatic changes were due to the coming and expansion of the railway – a pair of arches were made in the Walls north of Tofts Tower to give access to the original York railway station, and its goods facilities as part of the development of the new railway station outside the Walls.

Monument Type(s)

• TOWN WALL (Medieval - 1250 AD to 1260 AD)

Protected Status

• Listed Building
• Conservation Area
• Scheduled Monument

Full description

The wall is approximately 2.16m thick and 12m in height and is constructed in coursed
limestone ashlar facings. Cores taken in 2003 indicate that the facing is backed with brickwork
or gritstone.The stonework to the bottom half of the wall are larger ashlar with fine joints. The
stonework to the top half comprises smaller stones in coursed random rubble. There are two
large openings in the wall comprising gothic arches of 20m span and 5.2m rise. The archways
span from chainages 831 - 851 and 878 - 898. The sections of wall over the arches are
hollow and contain strengthening steelwork installed in 2005. There is a
pedestrian opening through the wall at chainage 865. There are four stone buttresses on the
outside face of the wall located either side of each opening. The base of each buttress
incorporates a false opening (Mouchel inspection report 2017).

YAT, 2004, York City Walls Chainage 822-906 (Unpublished document). SYO537.

2017, Inspection Report Chainage 825-925 (Unpublished document). SYO2447.

Sources and further reading

Related records

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