York Historic Environment Record

Watching brief during repairs were undertaken on the stretch of City wall between Walmgate Bar and Fishergate Bar, 50m to the west of Tower 37. This consisted of the stabilization of the wall-walk and the tying together with metal bars of the inner face of the wall-walk to the outer face of the parapet wall, which involved the removal of the flagged surface of the wall walk and excavation through the fill beneath. Beneath the flagged surface of the wall-walk was modern backfill consisting of limestone rubble bedded in lime mortar. In parts this rubble fill was more firmly bedded and partly ran beneath the parapet wall, possibly the remains of earlier underpinning. In certain areas, especially at the tie bar positions 4, 6 and 7, the rubble core fill was c.0.30m shallower than average, beneath this was a layer of brown sandy clay containing limestone chippings. This was cut away on both the north and south sides presumably for the construction of the wall-walk and parapet walls respectively. This suggests that it may be the remains of the original top of the rampart which perhaps carried an early form of wall walk, although no evidence of this survived. The dismantling of a section of parapet wall at a small offset 60m to the east of Fishergate postern gate and the excavation of a new foundation trench was observed during the course of our work. It was seen that the parapet wall was set directly on to the surface of the rampart with only one course of foundation stone. The rampart itself, which was sectioned during the construction of a new foundation trench, was seen to consist of various types of silty clay most probably the spoil from the excavation of the outer ditch Museum accession code: 1990.32. SAM number: N YORKS 30 York Archaeological Trust annual report /1990-91/28 York Archaeological Trust Archive Catalogue Number: GB2837-SIT-A0674-1-1