Capital of the NORTH
Lounging in a comfortable leather armchair sipping a flat white in the Gatehouse Coffee café, York might feel every inch a modern city. And it is. But step outside onto the castellated terrace, usually teeming with coffee aficionados and cheery tourists, and history soon crowds in. As the name of the establishment suggests, you are standing within the castle walls, at one of the four main gates – or “bars” – of this Scheduled Ancient Monument. Gatehouse Coffee is situated in Walmgate Bar, and together with Bootham Bar, Monk Bar and Micklegate Bar, it is part of England’s most complete medieval city wall.
Even more remarkably, beneath the largely medieval fortifications that survive today, lie the remains of the original Roman walls dating back to 71 AD. This is, simply put, the city’s birthday. It was christened Eboracum and initially populated by 5,000 soldiers who had marched north from Lincoln. No settlement seems to have existed here before they arrived, so they began from scratch, civilising acres of empty meadowland at the confluence of the rivers Foss and Ouse. This was
