Stairway at Monk Bar

Visited 19 March 2006

Monk Bar was eventually expanded to four stories -- each of them with self-contained fortifications so that the defenders could retreat to the next level and start the battle anew.  Here's the stairs to the street level.  If you could defend this narrow space, you could probably hold the enemy off for a long time.  

Apparently Monk Bar's defenses of this scale were never used.  The major assaults on the medieval walls came 

• At other gates during the English civil war
• From townspeople protesting taxes
• From the city council itself trying to get permission from Parliament to tear the walls down to make the city more accessible.

Lost? If so, click here for a good map of the York Walls (in PDF format)

For more narrative on York, see our description web page by clicking here.