Given the dangers of medieval life, St. Mary's Abbey needed its own set of walls to keep out the riffraff since it lay outside of York's walls (and the administrations of the abbey and town were often in conflict over a variety of issues). Built in the 13th and 14th centuries, these walls are typically not as thick as those of the town, they do contain watchtowers and other defensive accoutrements. Below is St. Mary's Tower, built in 1324. It's about 30 by 30 -- 30 feet in diameter and 30 feet tall.
Note the red phone booth. It's nice to have a quiet place to use your cell phone. The tower suffered considerable damage in 1644 when Cromwell's folks attacked the city and exploded a mine underneath the tower. The damage is probably not what we see below as the tower was rebuilt after their attack. Today the tower houses a singing academy.
Most of the other fortifications along the wall are in worse shape than St. Mary's tower:
These next two pictures show a facsimile of the archers' shutters along the wall.
The bowmen would fire a quick succession of arrows through the open portico (above) and then quickly close it off (below) before the attackers could react. A nearby plaque tells us that the grooves for these shutters are found in very few walls in England.
Here's an orphan piece of the walls showing how narrow some of them were, especially compared to York's walls which are usually wide enough for several people to walk abreast. This section is at the far end of St. Mary's property, near Bootham Bar (Gate). This was the slum area during the Viking days and St. Mary's and the City fought over who had jurisdiction over the area. Nearby, a road leads North along the route of the original Roman road.
