Category: Latest News

The solution to last weeks Picture Number 19 –

This is St Mary’s Tower, at the corner of Marygate and Bootham, a corner tower to the abbey walls. Built sometime between 1318 and 1324 by Stephen de Austewyk, St Mary’s tower has changed much over the years. It is a two storey structure, around thirty four feet in diameter, with an octagonal interior.

It was badly damaged during the 1644 siege of York, and subsequently rebuilt. The tower was mined by Parliamentarian forces during the attack, with an explosion beneath its foundations almost totally destroying it. The subsequent breach in the walls enabled Cromwell’s army to gain access to the city, fighting their way to the King’s Manor. However the attack was soon repelled with many injured and killed. The tower was rather crudely rebuilt, with much thinner walls, and some rather inexplicable external faults ….. still visible today.

With its disjointed bits and salvaged masonry it’s a visible reminder of the 1644 siege, a part of our history which doesn’t really seem to have captured the public imagination.

Picture Number 20 :-

The daffodils are a bit late this year – so here is one from 2012.

The location will be given here on our FaceBook page.

The solution to last weeks Picture Number 18 –

The Multangular Tower in the Museum Gardens is the most noticeable and intact structure remaining from the Roman walls. It was constructed as part of a series of eight similar defensive towers. The first settlement, centred on where the Minster now stands, had a much smaller circuit wall than the later medieval defences and the Multangular Tower was a polygonal bastion added to the western corner around the early third century, though it may have been built later.

Its style, protruding from the fortress wall rather than sitting behind it, was a development designed to enable defenders to fire down on anyone attacking the wall itself.

The small stone blocks making up the lower section, along with the red tile course known as Saxa Quadrata, are typically Roman. The larger blocks above however, date from a later medieval rebuilding. Walk round to the left of the tower, under the yew trees and through a little door to get the view from inside the tower and a look at some old Roman coffins.

Picture Number 19 :-

Another distinctive tower – showing the battle scars from 1644 !

The answer will be given here on our FaceBook page.