York Historic Environment Record

List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest City of York, 14-Mar-1997

Tower 35 is rectangular, 18¼ ft. wide and projecting 4 ft. 4 ins. There is a blocked arrow slit in
the N. side, another in the E. and remains of a third in the S., all 2 ft. 11 ins. above the plinth.
The E. wall is supported on a foundation arch. The wall between Towers 35 and 36 is neatly faced in large ashlar blocks above a plinth which steps up twice and has below it rough masonry extending to the exposed crowns of a series of foundation arches... The base of the wall with the plinth and arches appears to be 14thcentury, but much of the upper part was rebuilt in 1864. (SYO63 repeated in Mason and Clark 2019)

1980 – Survey report by R. D Waterman (City Engineer). Condition of walls described as
generally fair between the Red Tower, Tower 35 and Tower 36 (including the area of 1864
rebuild/pier removal at chainage 2800). The walls between Tower 36 and Walmgate Bar are
described as requiring urgent repairs.
1990s/00s repairs – Tie bars are known to have been installed in Tower 35 only along this stretch. There is no obvious indication that these were installed elsewhere, based on annotations made to the 1991 survey. (Mason and Clark 2019)

1995 YAT investigation:
After the lifting of the flagstones on the surface walkway of Tower 35 a compact deposit of large fragments of mostly unworked limestone, bonded with a hard lime mortar was excavated within the tower to a depth of 0.80m. This exposed the blocked arrow slit in the north wall of the tower and demonstrated that the internal face of this wall was finished with slightly weathered facing stones to at least the base of the excavation. Similar facing stones were present along the east wall below the walk-way for only c. 1.0m from its junction with the north wall. Beyond this to the south the facing stones were only present to just beneath the walk-way, below this level they were missing for a depth of 0.40m before reappearing level with the base of the excavation. It is possible that these courses of stones were removed during earlier repairs to the walk-way and tower.
It was noted that the coping stones around the tower were of a uncommon type for the City walls, with a flat top and chamfered sides, as opposed to the more normal pointed section.

2023 YAT investigations for CYC:
Some stone blocks were carefully removed by the CYC stone masons.
Once removed, the stone blocks were inspected by the attending archaeologist for any mason’s
marks or tool marks but none were observed. Facing stones having been removed, the rubble
core was exposed. This material was probably all related to the repairs and alterations carried
out in the 1800s. None of the original medieval wall core was revealed.
The investigations of the wall seem to suggest that in the 19th century the corner on the inside
of the north side of Tower 35 was enlarged to accommodate the walkway.

RCHME, 1972, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of York, Volume II The Defences, p140 (Monograph). SYO63.

YAT, 1995, York City Walls, Chainages 1000-1017; 1919-1921; 2300-2400; 2773 (Tower 35) Watching Brief (Unpublished document). SYO707.

NMR, 2019, NMR data (Digital archive). SYO2214.

2019, Towers 35 -36 Structural Inspections (Unpublished document). SYO2446.

York Archaeology, 2022, City Walls Tower 35 (Unpublished document). SYO3013.