Inside Incredible 500 Year Old Tower, With A Nasty Surprise On The Wall

The main spectacles to York's famous walls are the bars or main gateways, and rightfully so, but today I've been granted access to one of the city's 500-year-old towers, with a remarkably well-preserved Tudor toilet, but the shaft leads right down to the street. The reason for this is actually fascinating. It involves another unique tower and William the Conqueror. Unfortunately, I was welcomed by a nastier surprise by the entrance door. This is not a shock for a Sunday morning in York, as half the population of northeast England and York's largest Wetherspoons pub, the Poston Gate, is directly opposite the tower, and herein lies the start of the tower's journey. This attached archway is actually the Poston Gate, and Poston Gate is a smaller entrance into the city used for foot traffic, as opposed to the larger bars which cars could pass through. This is the only surviving Poston Gate on York's city walls. It's believed there were once about seven, but the masonry shows how the old Poston has been incorporated into the walls and the adjoining tower over time. Hooks still remain for a door, a large oak door, which would have once opened inwards into the city. But more interestingly, the grooves are still visible, where a portcullis once rested. These slots then continue up the tower wall, above the archway. So, who was keeping an eye on this gate from 4am until 9pm when it was open? Well, the answer takes us through the only entrance to the tower and above the mess. This is where the watchmen sheltered and collected taxes if required. But it's very much used for storage these days, so I won't dwell here, but it's worth noting the contemporary Tudor arch that leads to the spiral staircase that I'll show you more of. As well as the large open fireplace for the watchmen, with a flue that ascends and the brick repaired top of the flue exists through the roof, you can see it from the outside. But this hipped roof isn't all it seems at first glance, and you'll also notice how there's more windows on this floor than all others combined. That's because I'm currently standing on the original roof. That's why on the exterior north wall, there are spouts to drain water out from the once open roof. Out of these small slips, we can still see. This cobble outline was the walkway around the lead roof. It was a sheet of lead like on Monk Bar, one of the four major gates as we can see in this picture. In fact, Fishergate Tower would have looked just like Monk Bar with the crenellations when the structure we see today was built from around 1504 to 1507. For my subscribers across the pond, that's the same year the word America was first used. The embrasures here, however, have been filled in with windows when the current roof was added sometime before 1610. Also at that time, another major feature was removed. You can see I'm on the top floor, but the staircase keeps going up to a which once probably formed the base of a lookout tower. Why this was so important, you'll soon find out. But the parapet was removed when the timber roof was added, and this floor was actually used as a dovecot for a while in more peaceful times when the need for such defence had declined. However, further examples of defensive construction are to be found on the floor below, the second floor. Along with a large mullioned window facing into the city, there are two vertical slit windows, of course, useful for firing muskets or arrows out of at incoming besiegers. I found a model of the tower in this room, which shows what the original portcullis mechanism may have looked like above the arch. Massive thanks to Bill from Friends of York Walls for granting me access to show you guys this heritage. They're a volunteer group who rely on donations. I'll put a link in the description if you do want to help out even just a little bit. Anyway, this floor also highlights the sheer thickness of the walls of this tower. Brilliant. Beside this slit on the north wall is a recess. It could have been used for storage or it could have existed to lighten the load of the incredible feature beneath it, which if we go down the stairs, once again, we arrive at the first floor where the watchman and his family would have lived, evident by the decent sized fireplace, which is now entirely bricked up. Again, large mullion windows facing into the city. However, the star of the show for this room and maybe the entire building is back on the adjacent side of the wall through another Tudor arch. The hint of a metal hinge suggests a door likely occupied this arch for privacy reasons, as through the short passage we find the 500 year old toilet or guard rope, as they're known, equipped with old wool and leaves, a suitable replacement for toilet paper. But one can't help but notice where does this guard rope shoot go? All we see is pavement. On the main wall bars, the toilet waste clearly exits and piles up outside the city until there's enough to be removed. Also on these two medieval toilets on the walls near Monk Bar, the excrement, of course, exits outside the city walls. An interesting system of defence. But on Fishergate Tower, the guard rope shaft doesn't appear to be exiting the city, or it would be on this western side. And this also begs the question, where is the wall? It seems to terminate at the tower. And also on the tower, a plinth course of sloping masonry runs along the bottom of the wall. Well, the answer to all of this takes us to another incredible tower in York. Known as the Red Tower for rather self-explanatory reasons, this is the only brick tower out of all of the towers and bars on the city walls. The tower also had a crenellated roof with a parapet like at Fishergate Tower. But again, you'll notice the wall extends all the way round and into the tower, but terminates. Well, looking at the map of the walls, the Red Tower and Fishergate Tower are the two terminal points for the southeastern city wall. They're both connected. From the Red Tower, the sign then points to the continuation of the wall to the northwest. But that continuation really is quite a distance away. I think I managed to get a decent shot of this distance here, around 700 yards. Furthermore, we have another medieval guard rope facing the same direction as Fishergate Tower's, and again, appearing to send its waste directly onto the footpath where we walk. The tower was first built around 1490, but built only, the tower was very much reconstructed in the mid-19th century. The external bricks are mainly the Tuna originals, and it's likely, although not certain, that this is the same format. But this time, there's another phenomenon. You'll notice the tower is significantly shorter than at Fishergate. The walls also appear to fall lower and lower to the ground on approach to the tower, and the ramparts come to a halt. Why would a defensive wall ever be built like this? Well, it wasn't. The ground around the tower has actually risen by six and a half feet since the tower's creation. Because I'm standing on a lost lake, which was created by William the Conqueror in the 11th century, after he built a dam on the River Foss, roughly where the dual carriageway bridge is situated next to Fishergate Tower, and close to where the River Foss connects to the River Ouse. The goal of this project was to fill the ditches around his new castle, York Castle, of which the keep still survives, albeit this tower is from a different date. Anywho, this project also raised the water level of the Foss upstream by around six feet, creating an artificial lake known as King's Fishpool. Just quickly check this aerial view up. This is York Castle, this is Fishergate Tower, and this is the Red Tower. This is the River Foss now, this is where it runs, and then this is roughly the lake's size based on maps I saw in the ground floor of the tower. And this large gap that I showed you was in its entirety water. After years of sedimentation and pollution, the King's Fishpool was infilled during the 19th, 20th centuries, and these new roads were built. The walls here ran into the lake, and the Red Tower was actually described in the 16th century as in the water of the Foss, maybe even on an island. The ramparts late beginning suggest this is actually where the water ran up to in the 12th century when the ramparts were first likely created. We still actually have a fantastic surviving depiction of the contrasting ground levels around the Foss. The truly wonderful Merchant Adventurer's Hall was built in the 14th century. Looking at this stretch of Piccadilly, which was built around 1912, to the medieval building on the waterfront of the Foss gives you some idea of the true height of the Red Tower further upstream. But it was actually the creation of Piccadilly further down from here that ceased the lapping of water against the side of Fishergate Tower in the 1840s. The sloped masonry on the bottom of the tower followed the line of where the water came up to. The tower was built adjacent to the river's direction, unlike the Red Tower, so it wasn't submerged. As devastating as they were, the 2015 floods were actually really handy in giving us an illustration of what the area may have previously looked like before Piccadilly existed. So at Fishergate Tower, the parapet which no longer exists was a vital lookout point facing down the Foss as it connected with the River Ouse and also looking over William the Conqueror's castle. But also the mullioned windows, fireplaces and the wardrobe all face into the city, or into the lake, safe from any potential incoming cannonballs. The lake proved to be a nigh-on impenetrable defence system for the city for centuries, but from the Tudor period a different problem had arisen. For years and years human waste would regularly fly down the chutes at both towers and straight into the water, no doubt from other buildings too, where the fish for York's local markets were caught, hence King's Fish Pool. Rather grotesque and this, among a few other things, of course made for a heavily contaminated body of water, which became a real issue before the lake came to its end in the 19th century. There is always more than meets the eye in York. Please do leave a like if you enjoyed this one.