What Actually Remains Of York s Roman Walls BritMapped

This unremarkable car park in central York was laid out in the 19th century, but sitting near the gates is a wall, commissioned by a man named Constantius Chlorus, over 1700 years ago, as part of the outer wall of the Roman fortress of Ibrahim, now York. York's current walls are famously the longest town walls in the UK, but to the surprise of some visitors, most of what you see now dates to the 13th-14th centuries, so I'm going to walk the Roman perimeter and show you all that remains visible of this ancient wall, including an incredible find through this door directly in line with our wall portion to the north. But following its path directly to the south, we find ourselves amidst a jungle of historic masonry. The section in alignment with the previous wall part is this stretch right here. The outer side of the fortress wall can be seen with these neat which literally translates to squared stones. The other side of the wall is far less neat, very rough in fact, that's because the Romans had piled an earth bank against this side, so you can start to envision straight away what the defences would have looked like. This portion would have dated to roughly the same time as the portion in the adjacent garden. Following the wall north to where I started the video, we meet the Anglian tower. Here's the thing, we don't know the exact date for this tower, it's either late Roman or Anglo-Saxon, so we're not entirely sure at this moment. Anyway, following the Roman wall further south, we arrive at the first corner tower, the South Western Corner. This is known as the Multangular Tower and the squared Roman stones are evident once more, this time laced with bonding courses of red tile for decorative purposes as well as structural support. Roman coffins also now decorate the interior of the tower. The tower was likely constructed in the early 4th century on earlier Roman foundations when the south westerly defences were strengthened. This was the period when Constantius fell ill and died whilst in York to fight the northern British tribes in 306 and then Constantine the Great was proclaimed emperor here within these walls. But what's so special about this Roman segment is that the ancient wall was subsequently integrated into the 13th century medieval wall which you can see by the significantly larger ashlar blocks with cruciform arrow slits. So this tower was used thousands of years after the Romans first constructed it during the English Civil War, it played a large role in the Civil War. That's why this patch just to the side of the tower is thought to be from a cannonball. This is on the 25-ish metre stretch of wall which is moving to the east from the tower. This was built with the tower and largely remains standing to its full height today. So a wealth of Roman remains standing right here. But that's not all. If we follow the wall east we find something which is scarcely known about even among locals. It was only exposed in around 1960. This rounded base of six and a half foot thick wall was an interval tower. During the early 4th century remodelling project six projecting stone interval towers were placed along the south side of the fortress wall facing the river. So there's no prior foundations here unlike with the multangular tower. The inside segment of this wall is fascinating too. These are fragments of the rear compartment. Incredible Roman masonry just hidden away in our northern English city. So this area was the south-westerly corner tower dominating the riverbank but what about the opposite north-eastern corner? Well the remains are also visible behind a housing estate. This corner tower was excavated in 1926 and approximately two metres of this limestone tower can be seen, built against the curving wall of the fortress which I'll talk about in a second. The foundations date to around the start of the 2nd century but what you see now can be credited to Severan times. The other Roman emperor to die in York, again whilst campaigning north of here nearly a century prior to Constantius, was Severus Septimius. That's why there's numerous streets named after Severus around York. So this structure is of profound antiquity connecting both the 9th legion and the 6th legion with Severus Septimius. So they're the south-west and north-east corner towers of the fortress. Here's the thing, the southern and eastern walls of the Roman fort were situated on what is now the most urbanised part of York, the heart of the cityscape. But city planners did not totally disregard our ancient heritage that still sits beneath the ground here today and we can see exactly where. When the streets were repaved in the 80s the location of the Roman wall beneath was marked out. Most locals still have no idea what this paving really is and likely just think that it's poor road works. From the Multangular tower buildings occupy most of the street of Lendal but this short passage contains a small portion. More special pavement is visible further down at St Helens Square where the southern gate to the Roman fortress was situated. The Roman wall continues through the streets of York on New Street and then through to Feesgate where the southern eastern corner tower lies beneath me. And you can see this on the pavement. Then through Parliament Street and King's Square to our north-eastern corner. By the way, the western gate is beneath the current King's Square and it was here underneath what is now Oliver Bonasse, I think that's how you pronounce it, in 1854 that the last physical evidence of the lost Roman Ninth Legion was ever found with an inscription dating to 108 AD. Rather extraordinary. But next to the corner tower exists more visible remains. This is another of the interval towers, again of Severan date, built on earlier clay and cobble foundation. The structure survives to nine feet above those foundations but only two feet are visible. Even more interestingly both towers here are connected to nearly 200 feet of Severan wall. This is a stunning example of the stone improvements made around the time of Severus at the start of the 3rd century and also a fine example of the curvature of the wall which ran up north through the urbanised city and now seems to connect to the medieval wall on this site. Well, here's where it gets special because from this point here all the way round to the Multangular tower again the wall runs as two entirely straight lines meeting a perfect right angle. That's because for the north and west sides of the Roman fort the medieval walls were subsequently built on their exact alignment unlike the rest of the medieval walls. When the Ninth Legion first arrived here in 71 AD and created York, clay and turf ramparts were built to surround the city topped by a timber palisade which later starting early 2nd century became the stone walls which we've seen so far in this video. But these formidable ramparts that you see today were originally created by the Romans albeit now further beneath the surface but on the exact same plan. The Romans also created a ditch in front of the walls again used by subsequent settlers here and this is now the largest surviving portion of that ditch in the city. The two dips in the rampart suggest it's almost certain that the northern gate of the fortress sits beneath this exact site underneath here. So beneath these mighty medieval walls lie hundreds of meters of entombed old Roman wall still to this day just like we saw further down at the North Eastern tower and also near the Multangular tower this area was once covered by medieval ramparts like you see on the other side of the wall and behind the Anglian tower is a handy demonstration of the different layers of York itself. But the wall beneath these ramparts varies in height from three to five meters as some of the old Roman wall was of course taken as building material once the Romans had left and this is clearly seen on Bootham Bar the final gate and the site of the door. This is the only medieval gate that was built on the exact site of the Roman gate evident by the current city streets. The long straight road of Bootham makes its way into the bar with Roman cemeteries either side beneath the ground. This was of course a Roman road. Bootham then transfers to Petergate here at Bootham Bar and runs all the way to the eastern gate that I showed you. Petergate was the Via Principalis a major street of Iberacum. So Bootham Bar shows the lasting impact of our ancient occupiers here. The Roman gates were still in use in the following centuries after their exit from Britain and in the current bar we can still see some reused Roman gritstone towards the base. A structure truly steeped in history. But some of the original Roman structure does remain visible. Directly in line with the wall piece we started the video at a door emerges into the Bootham Bar steps. Well this structure is now home to a coffee shop that I heard contained something very special within the floor. So you can imagine my disappointment upon entering and seeing the glass floor extremely degraded and fogged looking, obscuring the heritage beneath. Fortunately credit to whoever posted this online from when this shop was first created it shows the metre high remnant of part of the 2nd century original stone walling. Sat right beneath me as I drank an espresso. This is exactly what York is all about. Please do leave a like if you enjoyed this one.