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York's walls are the longest surviving town walls in England, and most of the ring can be walked. Each pin below is a gate, a tower or a viewpoint; the ones marked as climbable are where you get up — stone steps onto the wall-walk, or stairs inside a tower.
The north-west gate, standing almost on the site of the Roman porta principalis dextra. Mostly 14th and 19th century, but some of its stonework is 11th century — the oldest on any of the bars. It was the last bar to lose its barbican, taken down in 1835, and its barbican and a length of wall went to make room for St Leonard's Place. The wall-walk starts here, up the steps from St Leonard's Place; the council's tap-to-donate point is inside the bar.
The tallest and most elaborate of the four main bars: four storeys, built in the early 14th century as a self-contained fort, with each floor defensible on its own. It still has a working portcullis. It replaced a 12th-century gate, Munecagate, which stood about 100 yards to the north-west on the line of the Roman porta decumana — the spot shows as a slight dip in the earth rampart. Steps up to the wall-walk are under the arch.
The east gate, and the only town gate in England that still has its barbican — the walled outer passage in front of the arch. It also keeps its portcullis. Most of it is 14th century over a 12th-century inner gateway, and an Elizabethan house on stone columns overhangs the inside; people lived in it until 1957. Rebels burnt it in 1489 over tax rises, cannon wrecked it in the 1644 siege, and it was repaired in 1648 and again in 1840. Steps up to the wall-walk are at the foot of the bar.
The wall itself
Length
3.4 km, about 2 miles, of surviving masonry — the longest town walls in England. Mainly 13th-century magnesian limestone, and, uniquely in England, set on earth ramparts that are far older than the stone: the Roman walls are largely buried inside them.
The rampart walk
Most of the ring is walkable, in three elevated stretches broken where the rivers and the old Foss marshes cut it: Bootham Bar to Layerthorpe, Red Tower to Fishergate Postern Tower, and Baile Hill through Micklegate Bar to Barker Tower. Pavement links the ends at ground level, marked by small brass studs in the paving. Free, and a full round takes about two hours.
Getting up
Free, and open every day except 25 December. The gates open at about 8.00am and are locked at dusk. Locking starts at Fishergate Postern Tower and goes anti-clockwise and takes about an hour, beginning at 3.30pm in January, 4.30pm in February, 5.30pm in March until the clocks change and 7.30pm after, 8.00pm in May, 9.00pm in June and July, 8.00pm in August, 7.00pm then 6.00pm through September, 5.00pm in October until the clocks change and 3.30pm after, and 3.30pm in November and December. In cold weather the council inspects three points — Bishophill, Lendal Bridge and Lord Mayor's Walk — at 7.00am, and if any part is icy or slippery the whole walk stays shut for the day, because the winter sun never gets high enough to clear the ice everywhere. Very high winds, snow and conservation work also close it. To check on the day, ring the council on 01904 551550 or Visit York at 21 Parliament Street on 01904 909487. Flooding is not on the council's closure list, since the walk sits on top of the ramparts, but it closes the riverside paths that link the sections along the Ouse, and it reaches the Red Tower at the low end by the Foss. There is no step-free way onto the wall-walk. Every access point is stone steps, there are more steps once you are up, and in places the walk is too narrow for two people to pass safely: a wheelchair cannot do it, pushchairs and prams are not allowed, and dogs other than assistance dogs are banned. Railings run along the inner side only from Bootham Bar to Monk Bar and on to Layerthorpe; on every other stretch the inside drop is 1.5 to 2.5 metres and unguarded, so children need watching. What is level: the first 20 metres of wall at the west end of Lendal Bridge, the Tower Place walk behind the low wall in Tower Gardens, which stays open when the main walk is shut, and the Roman wall and Multangular Tower in the Museum Gardens. The brass-studded ground-level trail makes a full circuit of the walls with the steps avoidable.
Why York's streets are gates and its gates are bars
The walls are why the vocabulary is inside out. York street names end in "-gate" from the Old Norse gata, a street — Micklegate is the great street — and the gatehouse at the end of the street is a bar. Six of those bars survive, four of them the full fortified article, and they still funnel traffic through openings built for carts.
That is the useful thing to understand about the walls. They are not decoration around the city, they are its outer dimension, fixed at 3.4 km about seven hundred years ago and not negotiable since. York cannot widen a street, so it rations one instead, which is why the footstreet hours, the blue-badge argument, the bus lanes and the car-park tariffs are all in the end arguments about the same few hundred metres of ground inside the same ring. 9.4 million people visited in 2024. The container has not grown.
The ring came close to going altogether. About two hundred years ago the city argued over whether to knock the walls down and let traffic and fresh air through. What came out of it was a compromise rather than a victory: some lengths did come down, arches were cut through for the railway in the 1840s, a section by Bootham Bar went for St Leonard's Place — and the rest was repaired and handed to the public as a footpath. The wall-walk is that settlement. Victorian parapets on medieval stone, widened so that anyone could walk where in places there had only been a ledge for a timber platform in times of danger. The council spends over £500,000 a year keeping it standing.
Sponsor a stone at Fishergate Postern Tower
The Friends of York Walls, who lease Fishergate Postern Tower from the council and open it to the public, fund the work on it by inviting people to sponsor a single named stone on its outside face for £20. You pick a specific stone on the west or north wall, and a certificate and an entry in the book of sponsors tie that stone to your name. The scheme has been running since January 2012, when the Lord Mayor took the first stone; money currently goes on displays, electrics and roof repairs. The council also takes tap-to-donate contributions of £3, £5 or £10 at Bootham Bar.
The traditional principal gate, on the road in from the south-west. The name is Old Norse for the great street — the same gata that gives York its "-gate" street names. Lower section 12th century, upper storeys 14th; the barbican was removed in 1826. Monarchs entering the city touch the state sword here, a custom going back to Richard II in 1389, and traitors' heads were displayed on it, including Richard, Duke of York, in 1461. Restored in 2017. Steps up to the wall-walk at the side of the bar.
A smaller gateway, first recorded around 1315. Rebels burnt it in 1489 along with Walmgate Bar; the city's response was to brick it up, and it stayed blocked for well over three centuries until it was reopened in 1827. It is a pedestrian way through the wall now, between Paragon Street and George Street, with steps up to the wall-walk beside it.
The newest gate in the ring, cut in 1838 to give Bishophill a direct way out to Nunnery Lane. Digging for it turned up the remains of a much older blocked gateway underneath — probably the one known in the 12th century as the lounelith, the secluded gateway, small and set well away from Micklegate Bar. Steps up to the wall-walk are on the road outside the bar.
The turret at the corner where the walls turn above Lord Mayor's Walk, on the stretch between Bootham Bar and Monk Bar. It was built in 1889 and is the most conspicuous of the Victorian additions to the circuit; it has also been called Bawing Tower and Frost Tower. You pass through it on the wall-walk, on the one section that has railings on both sides.
The Roman west corner tower of the fortress, standing in the Museum Gardens with medieval stonework built on top of it. Ten sides, probably added under Constantine around 310 to 320 AD to an earlier line of walls; when the Danes took the city in 867 and pulled the Roman towers down, this was the one they left. Its back four sides are open, so you can walk inside. Ground level, no steps — the council names it as the most accessible close-up view of the walls anyone can get.
Also called North Street Postern Tower. Built in the 14th century on the west bank of the Ouse as a boom tower: a chain ran from here across the river to Lendal Tower, closing the water to boats that had not paid. It was restored for use in 1930 and is occupied today. The elevated wall-walk towards Micklegate Bar begins here, up the steps — and the first 20 metres of wall at this end of Lendal Bridge are level, which makes them the one bit of wall you can reach without climbing.
Viewpoints
Baile Hill
You can climb this
An earth mound, not a tower: the motte of the Old Baile, the second castle William the Conqueror threw up in York, this one on the west bank in 1069 after the rebellion of that year. By about 1340 the city wall had been built along two sides of it, using the castle's own ramparts and ditch. Two slight dips in the rampart, one here and one near Victoria Bar, are all that is left of the ditch. The wall-walk towards Micklegate Bar starts at the steps here.
Not part of the circuit, and included here because people reasonably assume it is. It is the keep of York Castle, which had its own walls and moat and was a separate fortification; the city wall ran past it, and the postern that stood in front of it was pulled down in the 1820s. It is the largest surviving part of the castle and the one tower on the trail you can climb inside — English Heritage runs it, there is a charge, and the roof deck gives the panorama the wall-walk cannot. Steep steps up the mound, with three resting places on the way.
The other end of the chain, on the north bank of the Ouse and built at the same time as Barker Tower. In the 17th century it was converted into a water tower for the city's waterworks, then rebuilt again in the 19th century for offices. It is a private holiday let now, so it is not open, but it is the reason Lendal Bridge sits where it does: the bridge replaced the Lendal ferry when it was built in the 1860s.
Brick rather than limestone, built around 1490 where the walls resume after the gap the Foss marshes used to make. The city council used it as an occasional store until a community group took a 30-year lease, refurbished it and reopened it as Red Tower York, with refreshments on the ground floor and a function room above. It flooded on Boxing Day 2015, and it was fitted out afterwards on the assumption that it will flood again — robust materials, and fittings that can be wheeled out. The wall-walk to Walmgate Bar starts here.
The one surviving postern tower, at the end of Piccadilly, built around 1504 to 1509 where the walls stopped at the water that separated them from York Castle. Four floors, an original spiral staircase, a remarkably complete Tudor garderobe and a great many masons' marks. The Friends of York Walls lease it from the council and open it free on selected days; only the ground floor is reachable without stairs. It is also where the council starts locking the wall-walk gates each dusk, working anti-clockwise round the ring.