York Guides

Fishergate Bar was the entrance to the city from Selby, and the walls from this Bar to Fishergate Tower commanded the narrow approach to the castle. The Bar consists of a round arch between two wide buttresses, each with passage through. Adjoining the eastern buttress was a rectangular guardroom. The arch is of two orders, continued to the ground with rounded groove for a portcullis.

Over the arch is a panel containing the city arms and an inscrip­tion. An insurrection broke out in 1489 amongst the peasantry in Yorkshire. At Topcliffe the rebels mur­dered the Earl of Northumberland and then invested York, burning the gates of Fishergate Bar. The rebels were eventually defeated and one of the leaders beheaded at York.

Fishergate Tower is provided with a garderobe, and when built adjoined a wide water area. Adjoining, on the land side, was a pos­tern under a pointed archway, which has the jambs grooved evidently to accommodate a portcullis.