York Historic Environment Record

This stretch of wall was built to stand in front of the original earthen rampart which dates from AD
71, the time of the founding of the fortress. Jeffrey Radley’s excavation at the Anglian Tower (Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 1972) revealed the construction trench for the wall cut
into the early rampart, and showed how the rampart had been reconstructed and heightened after the wall had been built. The wall itself is c.1.5m thick and originally stood c.5m high to the level of
the wall-walk along which the soldiers would have patrolled. As a result of the 1971 excavation it is now known that there was also a tile cornice which stepped out at the top of the wall below the parapet. Remains of the cornice can best be seen where the wall passes in front of interval tower NWl.

Up to seventeen courses of facing stones survive above ground in the area under discussion and they rise steadily from north-east to south-west, presumably reflecting the contours of the-natural ground surface. The stones have an average height of c.l0cm and few deviate from this to any great
extent. There are numerous examples of tooling marks on the stones which were left by the masons after final finishing of the faces. These marks are not distributed evenly, however, and there are virtually none north-east of the 'Anglian' Tower. Most common are short horizontal marks made by a toothed chisel (INTERIM 1995).

RCHME, 1972, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of York, Volume II The Defences (Monograph). SYO63.

YAT, 1995, INTERIM 20, 20/2 (Serial). SYO2660.