It felt like the beginning of a great expedition. It was a thursday, but many great or at least one in every seven of the great adventures of the world must have started on a thursday. Christopher Columbus may have had a lie in on a wednesday and then it was too late to set off, etc, etc so thursday was best to begin the stumbling upon the Americas, ditto James Cook- late delivery of ships biscuits on a wednesday night so best to set sail thursday, Cortez had a late swordsmans lesson mid week therefore making thursday the only possible diarised date to begin the exploitation of the native South American peoples.
As I headed away from the Hull urban area it was bright but quite cold out of the direct sun. There was snow in the fields and hedgerows on the higher ground above Pocklington but not a cloud in the powder blue sky. I felt that it was going to be a good day for exploring and actually acheiving the circumnavigation of York along its magnificent walls.
The walls are the longest and best preserved in England at nearly three miles long. Their origins are clouded by their substantial reconstruction and renovations in the comparatively modern times since the 19th Century but for authenticity there remains intact a whole stretch of Roman walls including two towers. As with a good proportion of the well planned and executed civil works by the Romans these formed the structural basis for many of the later attempts to form fortifications and monuments by the more civilised and lasting rulers of the country such as the later Norman invaders. Most of the renovated walling is early medieval from around 1250 AD.
My quest was to be clockwise starting from Lendal Bridge one of the important crossing points of the River Ouse. On this particular thursday the river was manageable and well contained within its banks rather than marauding through the pubs and houses on the embankment which it often does even with modern flood defences in place. The integrity of the wall beyond Lendal Tower was surely tested in the early to mid 1800's when it was permitted to be punched through in the interests of the progresion of the steam railway. That George Hudson, the self proclaimed Railway King must have had superb powers of persuasion, significant economic clout or some very incriminating facts about the City elders who had strongly resisted any such traversties in the heritage of York. The walls had served the City well over the centuries against pillagers and worse and in 1645 a Civil War siege.
Micklegate Bar is first mentioned in the12th Century. A strikingly functional and intimidating building over four storeys in gritstone and magnesian limestone with some nice carved embellishments. The walkway has escaped health and safety measures and the steep drop to the inner bank makes the meeting of those undertaking their own adventure but in an anti-clockwise direction a bit scary particularly if the whole oncoming family insist on walking 5 or 6 abreast. The Victorian housing in the lee of the wall is in the warm and mellow brick characteristic to York. Certainly some of the most expensive two bedroomed real estate in the City. There is a clump of grassy bank as the wall turns east which is the former motte of a castle and then it is down the slippery stepped courses off the wall where it ends just behind the warehousing and posh apartments built along the western bank of the river.
I crossed the Skeldergate Bridge which was still busy with tourists although obviously lost and confused by the temporary disppearance of the wall. The consultation by the United Nations of visitors of their guide maps allows another photo opportunity to be taken. Along Fishergate the housing just inside the wall is mainly of rather plain and corporate looking flats and low rise housing. The main road in from Hull along which I had driven earlier in the day halts at a busy traffic light controlled junction in front of the Walmgate Bar. This is well preserved with its 14th Century Barbican now part of the extensive cycle routes around York. On the inner side is a residence dating from the 1580's and must be one of the best and coolest places to live albeit possiby a bit cramped, noisy and draughty. Even following a battering in the Civil War the gateway was carefully restored along with its portcullis.
The wall is lower along this section with a short but steep embankment onto the inner ring road. Perhaps this was the most vulnerable flank although give that nourishment and longevity were still very poor in the warring years the fortifications would present a formidable obstacle to the sickly, bandy-legged and quite short of stature armed forces of even the most determined and resolute attackers. As the wall again disappears at the Red Tower, a squat very Romanesque looking citadel but from 1490 there is nothing in sight apart from Waitrose, Morrisons and a Wine Warehouse. There is quite an extensive gap on this eastern edge of the old part of York but to some extent the defences are in the form of a former fishpond now part of a canal waterway. This part of the wall walk is quite demoralising alongside crawling or stationary traffic and with a strange stagnant odour from the grubby canal. It is good to ascend back up onto the all for the best section by far which takes in Layerthorpe Tower and exposed Roman walling. Monk Bar is, at four storeys in limestone, a great landmark and many visitors cannot resist the museum to Richard III the infamous hunchback and villanous monarch who was a local lad.
Now travelling broadly north there are good views of York Minster and the gardens and grounds of grand mansions and town houses including the Treasurers House. The steep outer bank here also shows a deep defensive ditch. Bootham Bar is the next vantage point and occupies the site of the Roman Legionary Fortress but is mainly of 12th century and later construction. The end of my journey is soon in sight as I again approach Lendal Tower.
It has been a tremendous adventure, I accept probably never more than a few hundred metres from a Starbucks and with no significant danger apart from a temporarily loose shoe lace at one stage on a section of wall with no safety rail.. I did dodge a bit across the gaps in the ramparts to avoid imaginary arrows and projectiles and go through, word for word the dialogue of the French Kerniggets from Monty Python and The Holy Grail but only when I was out of sight and earshot of other visitors. The circumnavigation provides a good but brief insight into the broad and varied history of York and does serve to get the vascular and respiratory system into operation after quite a long and lazy winter and early spring.
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