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YORK CITY WALL

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Medieval City Wall, York. The Danish earthen defences were strengthened in 1215, by raising the bank and defending the circuit with a wooden palisade. Excavations have shown that the defences were about 100 feet wide and 125 feet high, with an external ditch 50 feet wide and 10 feet deep. In the central area of the present city the Roman defences were utilised between St Leonard's Hospital and the re-entrant angle in the rampart opposite Jewbury. The four main gates were built in stone in the 12th century. The stone walls were erected from circa 1250. The semi-circular interval towers date to tis early phase of wall building. By 1315, the whole of the Micklegate and central areas were enclosed except for Old Baile. This and the walmgate area were still defneded by the earth ramparts and palisade. The Walmgate defences were walled in stone from 1345. The rectangular interval towers generally dae to the first half of the 14th century, the demi-hexagonal towers date to the 14th-early 15th centuries. The defences were first armed with guns in 1491, the earliest gunports dating from shortly afterwards. The defences were repaired in 1642 and additional earthworks made, York being the headquarters of the Royalist army York was besieged by the Scots in April 1644, and despite being relieved in July, was reinvested after the Royalist defeat at Marston Moor, surrendering on July 16th. The walls were partly destroyed in the civil war siege of but were subsequently repaired. Restored in 1831-2. Scheduled.

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