Some April 2023 dates for your diary –
Fishergate Postern Tower (FPT) will be open from 10am to 4pm on Saturday 15th April + Saturday 29th & Sunday 30th April
SATURDAY 15th APRIL – FPT OPEN + The Sheriffs Army annual walk of the walls took place on Saturday 15th April when they called in at Fishergate Postern Tower around 2.45 pm to 3.00pm. Lots of special costumes were at FPT on Saturday 15th !
Some Photos of the 2023 Event are now available HERE
Pre-Event Official announcement from the York Guild of Freemen =
The Sheriffs Army is Marching Again – 15th April 2023
This year we shall be led by Suzie Mercer, Sheriff of York and as usual guided by John Oxley MBE, former City Archaeologist who will provide us with informative guides at various points of our route round the Bar Walls.
From 1:15pm we shall gather at City Screen to enable participants to change into suitable medieval attire (optional), before we gather in the yard in front, for formal photographs before we process to the Mansion House Steps for the Proclamation to be read at 2pm.
We shall then proceed to join the walls at Lendal Bridge to begin our patrol making various stops en-route. Once again we shall call at Fishergate Postern Tower (around 2:30pm) where the Friends of York Walls will greet us and there will be a chance to explore the Tower. For the Second year we have been invited to call at the Phoenix Pub behind Fishergate Bar for refreshment and a toilet call. Red Tower will be under restoration of its roof this year, so we shall be able to view progress as we pass it. We shall leave the walls at Bootham Bar then process back to City Screen via Petergate and Stonegate. Participants are welcome to join us for the whole walk or any part they wish to.
SATURDAY 29th APRIL – FPT OPEN
SUNDAY 30th APRIL – FPT OPEN + This year May Day’s Eve is Sunday, the 30th of April and from 11.00 till 5.00 that day Ebor Morris will be dancing their way round the city walls. This annual tour brings us a rare opportunity to hear and see the past in action with a backdrop we’ve also inherited from the depths of time, a backdrop of our city walls.
Historical enactors pretend they are from the past, but these dancers are not pretending, they are continuing a tradition, keeping part of our past alive. This time of year is when the pre-Roman people of this land celebrated ‘Beltane’, the shift from winter to summer, so this event has one link to a time before our walls were built. No-one seems sure where or when the traditional dances come from but, as with the city walls, some things in them are probably very old while others we owe to those people from more recent times who have kept the past alive by adding a little to what they’d inherited.
The Sunday schedule starts and ends with dances on the city side of Fishergate Bar just outside the Phoenix pub [11.00-10 and 4.30- 5.00]. Their tour involves walking, not dancing, along the wall-walk – even though a dancing walk from London to Norwich in 1599 is a documented part of the history of Morris – but they do plan dances on Robin Hood Tower [12.20-30], Toft Tower [2.20-35] and Bitchdaughter Tower [3.40-55].
On Toft Tower they’ll dance the ancient Escrick longsword dance – longsword dances are the local traditional group dance for men, many Yorkshire villages having their own style; the ‘swords’ are mercifully edge and point-free – but even so would you brave their becoming interlaced into a star around your neck?
They also plan to dance in these picturesque places: 11:15 – 11:25 city side of Walmgate Bar, 11:45 – 12:00 outer side of Monk Bar, 12:40 – 13:00 city side of Bootham Bar, 14:40 – 14:50 outer side of Micklegate Bar, @ 16:10 – 16:20 Fishergate Postern, but you can see their full schedule at: https://www.ebormorris.org.uk/walls-tour.html
NOTE – “York Walls Festival” – originally planned for 29th & 30th April 2023 – has unfortunately had to be postponed until a future date.
Updated 16th April 2023 AF
