Whilst at York Minster the archaeologists have been looking for a substantial Saxon stone building, a substantial Saxon stone building was, in fact, excavated this summer in a different part of the city by Mr Jeffrey Radley, one of Mr Ramm's colleagues at the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments in York. The original discovery was a curious one.

A tunnel through the wall

In 1939, the York City Recorder, C H Welsley, who owned stables on the inside of the medieval city wall and had grazing rights on the bank on the outside, decided to connect one with the other by means of a short tunnel through the city rampart under the wall. In driving the tunnel, the labourers broke into a unique tower-like structure buried in the city rampart. This tower was cleared out and incorporated into the tunnel. Ever since, the tower has been a puzzle to all who have visited it, and this summer, as part of RCHM's survey of the defences of York, the whole structure was laid bare.

The tower is situated on the north-west side of the Roman fortress, close to the multangular tower, just behind what is today the public library. Twenty feet (6 metres) below the present city wall is the base of the stone Roman fortress wall with a bank behind it. Sitting in the top of the bank and filling a post-Roman breach in the fortress wall is the barrel-vaulted tower with two doorways in it aligned along the top of the bank as if for a sentry walk. The front of the tower had partly collapsed before a Danish earthen bank was erected over the Roman wall, filling the collapsed portion of the tower. The succeeding bank, dated by 11th-century pottery, was erected shortly after the Norman Conquest, and this in turn was buried by the massive 13th-century bank and topped by the stone wall which can be seen today.

An interval tower?

The tower is post-Roman and pre-Danish, and no closer date than AD 400-870 can be given. The purpose of the tower? No one can be certain. It was formerly believed to be part of a Saxon church, but is almost certainly a defensive tower. Its high stone barrel-vaulted roof appears to have been designed to carry at least one more storey, and is unique as a pre-Danish civic defensive tower – who knows? – perhaps an interval tower. A suitable time for the refortification of the city would have been in the early 7th century by, or against, King Edwin.

One major result of the excavation is to give the first scientifically excavated section through the city defences, to confirm what was suspected from earlier excavations which were essentially seeking the Roman levels. Consequently, we now know that the city had a Roman fortress, a Danish bank with a timber breastwork, a Norman bank with a timber breastwork and a 13th-century bank with a stone wall and interval towers.

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