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Updated: May 22, 2025
On the opposite side of the Foss, a stream that joins the Ouse just outside the city, the walls recommence at the Fishergate Postern, a picturesque tower with a tiled roof. After this the line of fortifications turns to the north, and Walmgate Bar shows its battlemented turrets and its barbican, the only one which has survived.
There were as rivals neither factories nor great commercial offices in the fifteenth-century city. St. Clement's Nunnery and six churches, of which three were not far from Walmgate Bar and one was near Monk Bar, were actually outside the city walls. Without the city and the cultivated land near by most of the country consisted of great stretches of forest, i.e. wood, marsh, moor, waste-land.
About eighty years ago the Corporation destroyed the picturesque old barbicans of the Bootham, Micklegate, and Monk Bars, and only one, Walmgate, was suffered to retain this interesting feature.
Walmgate leads straight to the bridge over the Foss, and just beyond we come to fine old Merchants' Hall, established in 1373 by John de Rowcliffe. The panelled rooms and the chapel, built early in the fifteenth century, and many interesting details, are beautiful survivals of the days when the trade guilds of the city flourished.
It is no dummy wall put up to please visitors, for right down to the siege of 1644, when the Parliamentary army battered Walmgate Bar with their artillery, it has withstood many assaults and investments.
From time to time the wall left off, and then we got down, perforce, and walked to the next piece of it. In these pieces we made the most of the old gates, especially Walmgate Bar, which has a barbican. I should be at a loss to say why the barbican should have commended it so; perhaps it was because we there realized, for the first time, what a barbican was; I doubt if the reader knows, now.
Walmgate Bar, a strong, formidable structure, was built in the reign of Edward I, and as we have said, it is the only gate that retains its curious barbican, originally built in the time of Edward III and rebuilt in 1648. The inner front of the gate has been altered from its original form in order to secure more accommodation within.
Every type of house from the palace to the hovel was well represented. The Archbishop's Palace, consisting of hall, chapel, quadrangle, mint, and gateway with prison, was near the Minster. The Percies had a great mansion in Walmgate. In other parts were the mansions of the Scropes and the Vavasours.
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