York Historic Environment Record

A structural watching brief carried out at Clifford’s Tower, York during structural investigations towards a programme of conservation and repair. The investigations included a series of test pits into the internal fabric at first and wall-walk level and an external test pit against the motte stairs. Access scaffolding was also erected for a general condition survey of areas of the fabric internally and externally. The structural investigation provided more information on the scheme of reinforcement that was installed in the tower fabric in the early 20th century; monitoring of a series of test pits confirmed what was recorded in drawings made in the early 1920s. The early 20th-century intervention consisted essentially of the insertion of concrete ring-beams at wall-walk and first-floor level, which incorporated steel mesh reinforcement and steel reinforcing bars. Above the concrete ring-beam at wall-walk level an additional looser concrete, stone and brick preparation had been laid to receive the flagstones.