Museum aims to open up banks of the River Foss

DRIVE along Tower Street from Fishergate towards Skeldergate and, as you cross the River Foss, you can see on your right the massive old walls that mask the Castle Museum.

It is surprising how few people realise just what these walls are, says Martin Watts, of the York Museums Trust. If people think about them at all, they probably assume they are part of the city walls.

They aren’t. They are the outer, southern walls of what, in medieval times, was York Castle.

It was a huge affair, says Martin, the Museums Trust’s director of knowledge and learning: one of the biggest castles in the north of England. “The outer wall went all around where the car park is now, right around the law courts.”

Today, the castle’s keep – what we know as Clifford’s Tower – and this section of wall, which blends imperceptibly into the crown court, is all that remains. But the castle’s story deserves telling. And one of the reasons the Museums Trust is so keen to open up the western bank of the River Foss is so it can do just that.

The £100,000 project will involve landscaping the banks of the Foss, restoring the Victorian watermill to full working order – and “re-interpreting” the castle walls.

At the moment, the area of grass that lies between Tower Street and the walls is scrappy, and often dotted with geese droppings. It is from here, however, that you get the best view of the walls.

A walkway lined by iron railings runs along the base, above a mass of dark grey granite stonework that lines a depression in the ground.

This is where the castle’s drawbridge would have stood, Martin says. Above the walkway is a paler area of stone, that looks more recent.

That was, once, the castle’s great main gateway. Entry would have been across the drawbridge and through the gates.

Martin glances around at the scruffy grass. “This would all have been boggy,” he says, to explain the need for the drawbridge.

Visitors to the Castle Museum can come out here now, but there is not a great deal to see and it is all a little unkempt. Further up the river bank, past the old water mill, it gets worse.

Museums Trust staff have already begun clearing the land here, squeezed on a tight slope between the castle walls and the river. “It used to be waist-high with brambles, nettles and so on,” says Martin.

Not any more: but it is still scrubby and untidy, and littered with weeds. It is also fenced off, so that visitors couldn’t get here if they wanted to.

Under the plans that are being drawn up, however, this whole area will be landscaped. There will be a footpath running along beneath the castle walls which, at the point where the walls get closet to the river, will loop down to the riverbank itself.

The whole area will be landscaped and tidied up, and there will be more seating. “We just think people will enjoy it, coming here to sit under the castle wall, relax, and perhaps have their sandwiches,” Martin says.

It will add something extra for visitors to the museum, he says – and he also hopes York people might come here to have their sandwiches at lunchtime. “Just show your York Card, then come and sit by the river,” he says.

Plans are still being finalised. But with the £100,000 funding in place, the hope is that planning applications and scheduled monument consents can be lodged soon.

“Then we hope to start work in the autumn, and have it finished in time for Easter.”

And when that happens, at least one more small part of York’s riverside will be returned to the public.

The Foss riverside project has three elements: landscaping the riverbank; completing the restoration of the Victorian watermill; and interpreting the castle walls...

The river

The Foss is very clean, says Martin Watts, the York Museums Trust’s director of knowledge and learning. “It is full of fish, several varieties, including pike.”

The stretch beneath the castle walls is also one of the few sections of the river’s bank in York that is natural, instead of artificially edged. The plan is to open the riverbank up, and also improve the habitat for wildlife. That will involve planting grass higher up, and native wetland plants lower down.

The project might also aim to encourage bats. “And people say that otters have come up the Foss: so there may be an artificial holt where they can hide during the day,” Martin says.

The mill

The Victorian corn mill on the banks of the River Foss in the shadow of the castle walls once stood at the foot of the secluded Raindale Valley on the North York Moors. The building was used as a cottage, but in the early 1800s a waterwheel and milling machinery were installed.

Like many mills in North Yorkshire, it was only used to meet local needs, grinding wheat into flour, and oats and barley into meal for livestock.

The mill became redundant in 1915 and in 1935 it was offered by its owner to Dr Kirk for his new museum – York Castle Museum. The mill was reconstructed on its present site, and opened to the public in 1966.

Although not original to the site, Martin Watts says there would in the past have been water mills on the Foss: either operated by mill races, or else with wheels actually in the river.

The mill is already open on weekends, but volunteers are being sought to help complete its restoration. When complete, it will be surrounded by a cottage-style garden, Martin says.

The castle

William the Conqueror first built a wooden castle at the junction of the Foss and Ouse in 1068, to subdue the north. This stood for just over a century, before being burned down in 1190 in one of York’s bloodiest and most tragic incidents, when 150 Jews burned to death on the site.

A second wooden castle was built, and the mound raised to its present height – but this was destroyed in a gale.

In 1244, when war with Scotland threatened, the huge stone castle was built – including a new keep at the top of the mound, which later became known as Clifford’s Tower, the extensive outer walls, with bastions and two large gatehouses, reached by stone bridges across the moat.

The castle was damaged by fire, wind and water – in the 1350s part of it sank into the moat, causing the walls to crack – and in 1596, the castle jailer, Robert Redhead, began demolishing the tower and selling stone.

During the Civil War the tower was occupied by first royalist then parliamentary troops. A garrison of soldiers stayed in the tower until it was burned out in a fire in 1684. A century or so later, a new prison was built in the shelter of the surviving castle walls: it is now the Castle Museum.