The city of York is just a few decades short of its 2,000th birthday, so it's not surprising that it has a lot of ruins, remains, and ancient buildings, and a lot of walls. In fact, though they're not all connected, they are the longest town walls in England.
At various points along their length, they've had "modern" buildings built up against them; at other points gates and arches have been cut through them in later centuries to allow traffic, and in some places only bare remnants remain. Some sections of the wall are remnants along the river, defending against waterborne invasion or tax evasion.
All in all, a bit over two miles of the walls remain, and a walk along a section of them is a popular stroll. The section we walked last May, from Bootham Bar to Monk Bar, offers both interesting views of York Minster and a sort of 'over-the-fence' view into what amounts to backyards of central York.
The 'Multangular Tower' in York's Museum Gardens was built by Constantine the Great; a small piece of free-standing Roman wall stands nearby
A number of guidebooks refer to them as the 'Roman walls' of the city, but while Romans built a fort in the center of what they called Eboracum and built walls around it, only a small portion of York's walls date to then. There are bits from 8th century wars with Danes and others, but most were built in the 1200s and 1300s.
The way onto the walls at Bootham Bar is up the outside steps from the street and then more stairs up to the narrow walkway. The plaque below was a bit puzzling, since it wasn't year any gateway. But plaques are always a good opportunity to get one's name in brass...
From the wall, we could look down into the garden of a large inn, across to the cathedral towers and down to a statue that might be Alice, looking up from Wonderland.
George G recognized Alice in the library gardens as our One-Clue Mystery
Foliage was extensive and colorful...
At points, curves in the walls allowed a view of the wall we were walking on; this section of the wall mainly follows the line of the oldest Roman wall and even includes some of its stones at the lowest level.
We passed another lodging and its garden, with tables set for an evening meal.
The fortified tower is medieval, not Roman, but is apparently at the site of a Roman gateway, as noted by the pavement marker. At the end of this section, another tower and fortification.
At that tower, which marks Monk Bar, we found the stairway back to the street. The very steep stairway back to the street, and to the streets of modern York.
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