38 
THE ABBEY WALLS. 
Since the issue of our report a year ago, the arrangement 
which lias been made with the City authorities has been com¬ 
pleted. The Corporation has contributed the promised £200 
towards the fund, and has taken over from this Council the 
responsibility for the preservation and maintenance of the whole 
of the Abbey Wall, in exchange for which the wall has been 
duly conveyed to the Corporation, as authorized by the Annual 
Meeting in February 1806. The length of the Abbey wall 
which has thus been preserved and permanently opened out to view 
is not large, but it includes one half of the round tower near 
to Bootham Bar, and a short length of the adjacent wall, as 
well as the whole of the beautiful angle tower at the corner 
of Mary gate and Bootham, the adjoining house and shop which 
had partially obscured the tower having been removed. 
The removal of this adjoining house and shop was carefully 
effected by the Corporation, and brought to light some very 
interesting features of the tower which had been previously 
hidden by the adjacent tenements. It is fortunate for the right 
reading of the history' thus disclosed that we then had with us 
the late Curator of the Antiquarian Department, the Lev. 
Chancellor lfaine, whose lamented death a few months later 
is referred to elsewhere in this report. He was constantly on 
the spot during the progress of the work, and left on record the 
annexed valuable memorandum (see page 39) on the history 
of this angle tower, which will be read with interest,—especially 
in view of his repeated statement that the historic features 
brought out by the present restoration have added greatly to 
the antiquarian interest attaching to the tower. 
From this memorandum, it will be seen that the tower dates 
from 1262-1266, when permission was granted by King 
Henry III. to surround the Abbey with walls; that in this 
tower were stored the records not only of St. Mary’s, but of most 
of the other northern abbeys ; that during the siege of \ r ork 
in 1644, just before the battle of Marston Moor, the tower was 
undermined by the Parliamentarian army, a part of its wall being 
blown out, and that when the tower was afterwards rebuilt, a 
new wall was erected within the line of the older structure, 
