City Wall From The Red Tower To Fishergate Postern Tower Fishergate Bar Fishergate Postern Tower The Red Tower Walmgate Bar

City Wall from the Red Tower to Fishergate Postern Tower

This defensive system comprises walls, gates, gatehouses and towers extending between the Red Tower and Fishergate Postern Tower, including five intermediate towers in addition to these three principal structures.

The walls date from the mid 14th century and were restored in 1857–58, 1864 and subsequently. The Red Tower was built around 1490, heavily restored and re-roofed in 1857–8, with further restoration in 1958. Walmgate Bar and its barbican date from the 14th century but incorporate a mid 12th-century gate; a house was added around 1585, the structure was repaired in 1645–48, and underwent restoration in 1840 and later. Fishergate Bar incorporates an earlier gate from around 1440 and was blocked from 1489 to 1827, with restoration in 1961. Fishergate Postern dates from around 1440 with the tower built around 1505; it was re-roofed in the 17th century and restored in 1838 and 1960.

All structures except the Red Tower are built of magnesian limestone ashlar. The Red Tower is constructed of red-brown brick in random bond with limestone dressings. The house on Walmgate Bar is timber-framed with plastered infill and the Bar has a lead roof. The Red Tower and Fishergate Postern Tower have hipped tile roofs with gablets and overhanging eaves.

The walls are carried on foundation arches embedded in the rampart and stepped with the slope, with a chamfered plinth where visible. Short buttresses have offsets. The parapet is plain or crenellated with sloped copings, pierced with musket loops or arrow slits, some canopied. On the inner side, a stone-paved walkway edged with moulded coping is carried on segmental arches in places. The towers are rectangular with chamfered plinths; some have cruciform arrow slits with oillets. All are crenellated, one with merlons pierced by canopied arrow slits. Inner tower doorways have chamfer-stopped jambs and segment-arched lintels.

The Red Tower comprises two storeys and an attic. The entrance on the inner side is a quoined and chamfered doorway with a four-centred head. Ground floor openings are generally plain slits with ashlar sills and lintels; first floor openings are either segment-headed of brick blocked by board shutters or cruciform slits with oillets cut from ashlar blocks. One side has a dummy garderobe projecting on corbels. Attic windows are gabled dormers closed with board shutters.

Walmgate Bar is a three-storey gate and gatehouse with a one-storey barbican. The barbican has a moulded plinth, weathered angle buttresses, and a moulded corbel course to its embattled parapet with corbelled-out bartizans. The archway is chamfered and two-centred with moulded imposts. The parapet displays a central painted and carved City of York arms in a moulded and pedimented surround, over a defaced datestone originally dated 1684. The returns have embattled parapets over hollow chamfered corbel courses. The gatehouse front within the barbican has a chamfered round arch with an inscribed slate panel recording the 1840 restoration. The upper storey between embattled bartizans is joined by a plain parapet and displays a reset painted and carved Royal Arms in a moulded surround, flanked by single-light windows. Square-headed doorways open to barbican walkways, with moulded strings beneath the upper storey and parapet.

The gatehouse front to Walmgate has a chamfered round arch on imposts closed by massive wooden gates with a wicket. The upper storeys are obscured by an extension raised on Doric columns on tall pedestals carrying an entablature with moulded cornice. The first and second floors are flanked by tiered columns—Doric on the first floor with triglyph frieze blocks and moulded cornice, Ionic on the second floor beneath an entablature with enriched cornice. The first floor has a window of six mullioned and transomed lights with a triglyph keyblock; the second floor has a similar window of five lights. A balustraded parapet with turned balusters and square newels is surmounted by obelisk finials. Access to the gatehouse is through a shouldered doorway on the first floor of the right return.

Fishergate Bar is a one-storey gateway. A truncated wall finished with a plain parapet and sloped coping has a round carriage arch of two chamfered orders with a portcullis slot. On each side are weathered block buttresses pierced by foot passages with corbelled lintels. The parapet incorporates a through datestone recording the construction of 60 yards of city wall in 1487 by Lord Mayor Sir William Todd, carved with the City of York arms.

Fishergate Postern and Tower comprises a four-storey tower with the postern attached. The postern is a pointed arch of four chamfered orders incorporating a portcullis slot. The tower, originally embattled, is set on a moulded plinth and has clasping buttresses at two angles, one incorporating a projecting garderobe on the first floor. The doorway on the inner side is chamfered with a four-centred head and a twentieth-century nail-studded door. Windows are either slits in chamfered openings or of two segment-arched lights in a square-headed surround. Original embrasures were converted to unglazed windows by the roof construction.