After our lovely tea time at Betty’s on Monday September 18th we walked to Bootham Bar to head up the stairs to the City Walls. York still has most of the walls that surrounded the city 700 years ago. We walked from Bootham just past Monk Bar and descended down onto Peasholme Green to St. Saviours Place to St. Saviours Gate and finally to Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma to go into The Shambles.
Bootham Bar
We only ran into a few other people on the walls and that was nice. We again were thankful that the weather was wonderful for this evening walk.
Approaching Monk Bar…
We descended these stairs to get to the street level to get a better view of Monk Bar, below.
Monk Bar is the largest and most ornate of the bars, it dates from the early 14th century. It was a self-contained fortress, with each floor capable of being defended.
We then ascended the walls again and continued on to their end on to the east corner and as far on the walls that we would go on this evening.
This eastern section of the walls had this plaque on the walkway. The place where medieval Jews buried their dead in York has long been called Jewbury. There was a thriving Jewish community here in the 13th century. The history of the treatment of Jews in York is a tragic one. I found this article about some of the tragic treatment of the Jews.
In the Middle Ages, a massacre of the Jewish population took place at Clifford’s Tower, pictured above. Clifford’s Tower is in the Southern section of the city center.
We had our first views of York Minster from the walls and later in this evening we saw it up close.
On Tuesday we did a hop on hop off tour and saw the wall from a different perspective.
Walmgate Bar.
Micklegate Bar was historically the main entrance to the city for anyone arriving from the south, and particularly, the gate through which visiting Royals would pass.
There is so much history in York and it’s hard to capture it all in one visit. We just touched the surface while we were there.
The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b. 