Fishergate Postern Tower – A Virtual Tour
Using the Tour :-
The virtual tour is based on 360 degree photos, taken from 14 places in and around Fishergate Postern Tower. In each place the camera ‘looked’ all around it – so you can now do the same in the virtual tour.
When you first get one of these photos on screen it is fully zoomed out and there is a red blob-pin in the middle. Use this pin to get a guide’s short comments on screen. Computer users can change the size of the lettering by using the + or – key with the control key pressed down. The comments will disappear in 20 seconds, or you can use the cross at the top right of the comments.
Use the black and white arrows on the screen to go to another of the 14 photo places. There is an arrow pointing to each of the places you could move directly to if you were really at the tower.
The ‘i’ icons on the screen are placed close to something of special interest which a guide might tell you about. You can use them to get an illustrated information-sheet on screen in its own window. Its first paragraph is a simply written brief comment. The controls for print size etc. are at the top right of these windows. The same ‘thing of special interest’ may be seen on different photos. There are 10 ‘things’ of special interest: York City Walls, York Castle, Postern gateway, Tudor toilet outlet, Wall-walk drains, Masons’ marks, Tudor-style toilet-wipes & ‘jordan’, Archaeology, Fear of Scots, Roof timbers.
There is a side-screen which you can slide in by using the chevron on the extreme left hand side . This gives you a ‘short cut’ way to get some of the 14 photos on screen. [If there is an overlap of writing on the screen, computer users can remove this by changing the size of the lettering by using + or – with the control key pressed down.] At the bottom of the screen is an icon you can use to remove all blob-pins, ‘i’ icons etc. from the photos. Another icon there moves you to and from ‘full screen’ viewing of the photos.
The side-screen tells you that Sky Filming created this virtual tour for the Friends of York Walls. It doesn’t tell you that Jonathan Mallory of Sky Filming did this for free. The Friends are very grateful to him for this gift to those interested in visiting the tower – especially those who are barred from getting there ‘in reality’, or barred from getting up the spiral stairs there by disability or Covid.
The photos were taken in 2020-21. Simon Mattam wrote the words used in the tour and would welcome feedback via friendsofyorkwalls@gmail.com.
All images,text and layout are the copyright of Sky Filming, The Friends of York Walls, or Simon Mattam.
A “Stand Alone – off-line” version of this VR tour is available on request – to download and run as an 960Mbyte .EXE file.
