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Stop D: Anglian Tower

  • Address Off Library Square (behind York Explore Library), Museum Street, York YO1 7DS
  • Address View on Map
  • Opening Times 8:00 am - 10:00 pm

A rare early-medieval stone tower abutting York's city walls, possibly the only secular Anglo-Saxon structure in Britain.

Booking This Attraction

Attraction Duration

50 minutes

Age Range

Suitable for all ages

About Stop D: Anglian Tower

Visitors can walk right up to Anglian Tower via a quiet, often-overlooked path behind York Explore Library.

As you walk along, you can clearly see the lower remains of the Roman wall running parallel with the higher medieval city walls.

At the end of the path, a small barrel-vaulted stone tower stands over three metres high against the inner face of the Roman wall.

The tower had been covered over by the earthen bank of the city walls, but was rediscovered by tunnelling workmen in Victorian times.

Excavated in the 1970s, the stone structure was mis-named “The Anglian Tower” at the time.

Experts have since clarified the tower’s date, due to evidence from the stonework, and it is now accepted to be a late Roman structure, rather than 7th–9th century Anglian.

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